THE  WAR,MADAME. 

By 

Paul  Geraldy 


JC-NRLF 


SB    Efl3    SflS 


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(Dtie    Vyat, 

cJlbadatne  ,  ,  , 

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Cp      /    /o,      ij 
^hauL  yetaldij 

lOianAlated  by 

c&avton  cBlake 

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COPYRIGHT,  1917,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  March,  1917 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  ... 

DAMBOUILLET,  Maintenon,  Saint- 
1  N  Cyr!  I  fidget  in  my  seat.  In  an 
hour  we  shall  be  in  Paris,  that  I  never 
expected  to  see  again  before  the  ^ar's 
end;  Paris,  whose  name  gives  me  a 
fever  now  that  I  am  drawing  near! 

Sent  back  from  the  front  five  weeks 
ago,  and  out  of  hospital  for  barely  one, 
I  might  have  stayed  on  in  barracks  for 
some  time.  The  garrison  town  wasn't 
such  a  bore  after  all.  I  had  a  friend 
there,  also  books.  My  family  came  to 
see  me.  And  I  made  a  bit  of  a  face 
when  the  captain  told  me  yesterday: 

"Vernier,  you  are  leaving  us  to-mor- 
row morning.  The  chief  is  making  out 
an  order  for  your  transportation/' 

Instantly  I  thought  of  the  names  of 
the  other  corporals  whose  turn  it  was  to 
[3] 

769783 


THE   WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

go.  And  I  protested  timidly.  My  big 
captain,  good  fellow  that  he  is,  answered: 

"As  you  like.  But,  you  see,  I'm 
leaving  myself  three  days  from  now.  I 
should  have  enjoyed  seeing  you  out 
there.  Besides,  they  are  asking  me 
for  two  men  to  convoy  the  parcel- 
post.  I  thought  it  would  mean  a  good 
chance  of  your  getting  back  to  the 
front  and  I  was  giving  you  Bossard 
for  company.  If  you  managed  well, 
you  could  spend  over  half  a  day  in 
Paris  and  pick  up  Bossard  at  Bour- 
get." 

"But,  captain,  all  my  family  are  in 
Sologne.  So  Paris,  at  this  time.  .  .  ." 

And  it  is  true  that  I  had  long  ago 
persuaded  myself,  thanks  to  saying  it 
over  and  over  again,  that  Paris  tempted 
me  not  at  all.  To  see  again  the  places 
of  which  I  had  such  happy  memories  of 
life,  love,  and  ambition — to  see  them 
[4] 


THE   WAR,   MADAME 


silent,  straitened,  empty,  sad;  to  find 
my  room  locked  and  shuttered,  all  cam- 
phor and  rolled-up  carpets — no,  I  could 
do  without  all  that. 

But  the  instant  a  possibility  of  re- 
turning presented  itself  my  pulses  tin- 
gled. And  when  my  captain  said, 
"Have  your  way!  You  can  wait  for 
the  detachment,"  I  very  nearly  yelled: 

"No,  no,  no!  Don't  change  any- 
thing, captain!  It's  all  right — I'm 
going!" 

Crazy  with  joy,  I  raced  up  two  flights 
of  stairs,  crossed  the  bedroom  in  one 
bound,  dropped  my  outfit  on  the  bed, 
and  woke  up  Jontin  with  the  cry: 

"Brute!    Idiot!    I'm  going  to  Paris!" 

So  now,  behind  my  open  newspaper, 
I  tremble  with  impatience  under  the 
outward  calm  which  I  have  put  on  as  a 
mask,  a  mask  that  burns  my  face.  Four- 
hundred-and-twentieth  day  of  the  war, 
[5] 


THE   WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

announces  the  provincial  newspaper 
which,  to  cheat  my  impatience,  I  study 
so  religiously  in  my  corner  of  the  day 
coach.  How  tiresome  these  papers  are ! 
The  war's  development  stretches  over 
too  much  space  for  any  one  event  to 
declare  itself  in  its  true  meaning,  and 
over  too  much  time  for  the  progress  of  a 
single  day  to  have  any  perceptible  value. 
But  we  are  running  into  Versailles. 

Half  an  hour  from  now,  and 

The  even-tempered  autumn  country- 
side passes  by  my  car- windows.  The 
telegraph  wires  waltz  to  the  rude  rhythm 
of  their  poles.  My  railway-wagon  stinks 
of  stale  cigars,  and  I  am  happy  as  a 
boy.  A  second-class  compartment  is, 
for  a  corporal  like  me,  a  haven  indeed. 
I  can  cast  on  my  neighbors  a  frowning 
look,  such  as  straightway  paralyzes  any 
notion  they  may  have  had  of  engaging 
me  in  talk;  I  can  cross  my  legs,  can  read 
[6] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

at  ease,  and  can  follow  the  ploughed 
ground  with  the  eyes  of  a  man  who 
loves  it  well  but  keeps  his  distance.  .  .  . 
I  am  most  irregularly  provided  with  a 
pass  signed  by  my  captain,  good  for 
twenty-four  hours'  liberty,  and  I  have 
left  to  the  good  Bossard  (who  is  not  a 
Parisian)  the  job  of  convoying  all  by 
himself  baggage-car  Px50712 — which  he 
will  attend  to  perfectly  well.  He  ought 
to  come  back  slowly  with  a  load  of 
merchandise,  and  I  will  catch  up  with 
him  this  evening.  Like  a  blind  zig- 
zagging insect  that  the  wind  has  been 
blowing  hither  and  yon  for  the  last  year, 
I  mean  to  spend  the  whole  afternoon 
wandering  at  will  through  certain  streets, 
passing  before  windows  that  are,  in 
memory,  very  beautiful  to  me;  spots  of 
gold  that,  from  the  pavements  of  wide 
modern  avenues,  one  sees  from  under 
plane-trees.  I  know  well  enough  what 
[7  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


awaits  me.  Many  a  curtain  will  be 
drawn  before  the  windows  I  have  loved. 
I  shall  find  it  a  mournful  Paris.  But  I 
am  going  to  enter  the  city  as  one  enters 
the  room  of  a  very  beautiful  woman  who 
has  been  very  ill. 

How  gray  Paris  is !  This  Gare  Mont- 
parnasse,  a  sombre  background  at  part- 
ing, is  positively  doleful  when  one 
arrives.  I  have  scarcely  touched  the 
platform  but  I  recall  the  staircase,  of  a 
piece  with  the  pavement,  the  exit  into 
a  crowd,  the  triangular  Place,  and  this 
rue  de  Rennes,  stiff  and  stupid,  which 
separates  two  charming  quarters  and 
makes  one  think  of  neither.  I  make  my 
mind  up  to  pass  quickly  and  unseeing 
through  all  this  drabness.  But  a  police- 
man bars  the  way  and  points  to  a  group 
of  permissionnaires  who,  like  me,  are 
just  off  the  train. 

" Not  so  fast,  soldier!" 
[8] 


THE   WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

And  we  are  all  taken  toward  an 
officer  who  will  vise  our  passes.  Is  any- 
thing going  to  happen  to  me?  No, 
everything  turns  out  all  right.  I  am 
free. 

Yet  this  freedom  of  mine  is  not  lib- 
erty. I  was  a  soldier  without  thinking 
about  it.  Now  that  for  a  few  hours  I 
cease  to  be  a  soldier,  I  remember  that 
I  am  one.  So  I  descend  the  stairs  very 
slowly,  very  cautiously. 

And  here  are  the  remembered  houses 
and  the  dun  sidewalks.  Each  of  the 
few  cabs  and  taxis  is  disputed  by  half  a 
dozen  clients,  and  I  don't  want  to  be 
disappointed.  .  .  .  The  subway,  there, 
reaches  out  to  me  the  invitation  of  its 
stony  staircase.  And  I  plunge  into  the 
train  which  will  take  me,  without  let- 
ting me  see  anything,  out  of  a  quarter 
that  bores  me. 

I  wind  my  way  through  all  these  peo- 
[9] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

pie  without  trouble  or  astonishment. 
Often  I  said  to  myself  at  the  front: 
"When  I  return  I  shall  be  stupid."  It 
seems  to  me  that  I  am  quite  the  con- 
trary— more  live,  fresher,  more  supple, 
with  more  stored-up  energies.  It  costs 
no  effort  to  adjust  myself;  I  am  less  be- 
wildered in  Paris,  at  the  end  of  a  full 
year's  absence,  than  I  was  one  day, 
after  two  and  a  half  months  of  war,  in 
the  Baths  of  Mourmelon.  There,  when 
I  had  closed  my  bathroom  door,  the 
sensation  of  being  all  alone  suddenly 
seemed  to  me  so  new  and  so  delicious 
that  it  went  to  my  head.  I  stripped  off 
my  clothes  as  one  lays  down  a  burden. 
Stark  naked,  I  took  dance  steps  and, 
when  I  caught  my  own  reflection  in  the 
glass,  I  said  to  myself,  amazed:  "It's 
me!" 

But  in  Paris  I   am  not  bewildered. 
I  took  this  subway  yesterday.    I  knew 
[  10] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

this  smell  in  advance,  and  these  lights, 
and  these  people  worming  their  way  in 
and  out,  and  the  hateful  clangor  of  the 
side  doors.  I  had  forgotten  nothing — 
nothing,  that  is,  but  the  charm  of  the 
women.  Lord,  but  the  women  are 
pretty!  This  one,  and  that  one,  and 
that  one — three  of  them  already  in 
this  one  car!  I  had  forgotten  that  so 
much  art  could  be  put  into  a  cloak,  so 
much  wit  into  a  hat. 

On  the  day  of  mobilization  I  was 
walking  with  a  friend.  We  came  face 
to  face  with  a  decidedly  pretty  woman. 
In  the  look  that  she  threw  our  way, 
there  was  the  timid  offer  and  the 
resigned  sorrow  of  those  whose  for- 
tunes crumble  to  dust,  the  sense  of  a 
disgrace  which  every  instant  brings 
nearer.  And  it  contrasted  painfully, 
this  pitiful  look  of  a  cast-off  animal, 
with  the  showy,  provocative  luxury  of 
[11] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

her  dress.  I  turned  toward  my  friend 
and  read  my  own  thought  in  his  eyes: 
"  Women  have  lost  a  lot  of  their  im- 
portance!" I  return — and  they  have 
regained  that  importance  of  theirs. 

Near  me  a  talkative  old  gentleman  is 
speaking: 

"Now  that  Paris  is  dark  at  night, 
you  must  go  to  see  Notre-Dame  by 
moonlight.  You  will  see  it  as  you  have 
never  seen  it  before  and  as  you  will 
never  see  it  again." 

Fine  people,  fine  hearts,  fine  souls! 
Dear  city  where  the  chance  passer-by 
thinks  thoughts  like  these ! 

All  the  same,  this  subway  bores  me. 
I  am  wasting  minutes  that  are  too 
precious.  Besides,  too  many  people  are 
staring.  It  makes  me  self-conscious; 
my  helmet  grows  heavy  and  heavier. 
But  I  escape,  and  emerge  above  ground 
near  old  Saint-Germain-des-Pres. 
[  12] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

I  have  this  afternoon  to  myself,  and 
even  a  bit  of  the  evening.  Shall  I  plan 
how  to  spend  that  time?  All  my 
family  are  in  Sologne,  and  I  certainly 
am  not  going  to  inhale  the  camphor  and 
dust  of  their  city  apartment.  As  to  my 
own  apartment,  I  decided  long  ago  to 
stay  away  from  it  at  whatever  effort. 
Better  avoid  sentimentalizing;  besides, 
would  it  be  so  sentimental?  Might 
it  not  be  sickening,  rather?  When  I 
think  of  that  sophisticated  nest  of  mine 
it  seems  to  me  I  feel  a  vague  uneasiness. 
I  must  have  changed  in  a  year's  time, 
for  the  thought  of  finding  again,  in  my 
furniture  and  on  my  walls,  the  soul  that 
I  once  took  such  pains  to  express  there, 
bores  me  beyond  all  words.  Since  then 
I  have  exteriorized  a  Maurice  Vernier 
much  wiser  than  the  old  one,  and  know- 
ing in  other  matters  than  the  choice  of 
hangings  and  the  placing  of  knick- 
[  13] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

knacks.  Furthermore,  I  can  see  all  my 
possessions  again  with  a  far-away  def- 
initeness,  as  if  I  were  looking  at  them 
through  the  small  end  of  my  opera- 
glasses.  Distance  has  diminished  every- 
thing without  eliminating  the  slightest 
detail.  I  see  my  mottled  cushions  and 
that  furniture  of  sickly  ebony  that  I 
was  once  so  proud  of.  No,  I  really 
haven't  any  wish  to  parade  all  by  my- 
self through  those  compartments  whence 
I  made  last  year  so  ridiculous  a  depart- 
ure, with  my  hair  clipped  close,  my  feet 
shod  in  enormous  laced  boots,  immense 
goggles  straddling  my  nose,  and  a  gold- 
rimmed  eye-glass  slipped  in  my  pocket 
"for  town  wear." 

As  for  the  men  I  know,  the  ones  who 
are  still  alive  are  scattered.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  if  I  go  and  look  up 
my  other  friends  they  will  only  be 
farther  away  than  ever.  Never  mind,  I 
[  14] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

will  just  sample  the  city  at  random.  If 
chance  makes  me  pass  before  a  friendly 
door,  well,  I  can  decide  the  next  step 
then.  I  don't  want  to  arrange  any- 
thing in  advance.  If  obscure  motives 
direct  the  steps  I  take,  may  they  remain 
unknown  to  me  and  may  I,  up  to  the 
last  possible  minute,  rest  in  ignorance  of 
my  preferences. 

All  except  my  first  hour.  I  know  per- 
fectly well  that  I  want  to  lunch,  and  to 
lunch  as  well  as  I  can  in  some  restau- 
rant that  I  like.  I  shall  find  it  some- 
where near  the  Madeleine,  and  I'm 
going  there  on  foot.  Let  me  be  off. 

Paris,  that  I  had  been  told  was  so 
lugubrious,  is  scarcely  sad  even.  Above 
all,  it  is  charming.  Cleared  of  its  ex- 
cessive turbulence  of  vehicles,  it  adds 
to  the  splendor  of  being  Paris  a  kind  of 
provincial  gravity  which  becomes  it 
better  than  it  does  the  Province.  Every- 
[  15  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

thing  here  is  calm,  and  without  sound. 
Paris  has  no  longer  its  air  of  giving 
strangers  an  exhausting  fete,  but  rather 
that  of  collecting  itself,  of  refashioning 
its  own  interior  life.  The  rue  Mazarine, 
quite  empty  and  glistening  between 
long  black  walls,  is  dominated,  at  one 
end,  by  the  dome  of  the  Institute;  it 
has  the  air  of  some  street  in  Venice. 
The  Seine,  which  I  love  none  too  well 
because  it  too  perfectly  dramatizes  the 
Paris  of  my  first  youth — idleness,  fine 
arts,  Latin  Quarter — the  Seine,  thread- 
bare as  the  classics,  gives  me  an  unan- 
ticipated thrill.  Good  morning,  old  pal ! 
Here  I  am  back.  ...  I  halt  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  Louvre.  Heavens, 
there's  no  mistake  about  it  being  good 
to  look  at !  What  order,  what  concert, 
what  rhythm!  I  am  flooded  in  the 
harmony  of  it.  I  bathe  myself,  piously, 
in  this  silent  music.  Comical,  this  be- 
[  16] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

ginning  all  over  thoughts  which,  through 
my  new  eyes,  awaken  to  new  life.  Am 
I  going  to  discover  the  old  Paris?  I 
break  away  and  reach  the  street  again. 
Here  it  is.  But  there  is  no  disenchant- 
ment. These  passers-by  must  have  been 
picked  for  me.  All  these  men  have  the 
air  of  thinking.  All  these  women  have 
eyes  that  one  loves. 

How  perfect  they  are !  Debonair  and 
distant  in  all  their  furs,  they  make 
you  forget  the  flesh  of  them.  Women 
you  meet  elsewhere  shame  you  when 
they  agitate  your  senses.  But  the 
sensuality  these  women  excite  is  purely 
cerebral;  a  subtle  play  of  spiritualized 
desires.  A  kind  of  aristocracy  subtil- 
izes their  sex,  adds  to  the  mystery  of  it. 
One  is  a  sixteen-year-old  in  their  com- 
pany. Little  princesses,  I  adore  you. 

And  now  I  blush  for  my  trench 
clothes  that  I  have  been  airing  so 
[17] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

boldly;  blush  for  the  living  war-story 
that  I  am.  In  the  first  days  of  Louis 
XIV's  immortal  campaign  of  Alsace 
(as  the  histories  call  it)  Madame  de 
Sevigne  said: 

"Nowadays  it  is  the  latest  fashion  to 
be  wounded." 

But  this  time  it  has  been  the  style  for 
over  a  year  and  my  war-cross  has  missed 
the  cue.  I  must  seem  to  be  something 
of  a  farmer,  so  far  behind  the  times ! 

The  well-known  restaurant  that  I 
enter  will  be  closed  to  me  at  two 
o'clock.  I  am  informed  of  this  in  the 
tone  courtiers  use  when  they  tell  the 
sons  of  kings  not  to  stick  their  fingers 
in  their  noses.  I  shall  have  to  lunch  in 
something  of  a  hurry.  People  are 
looking  my  way.  I  busy  myself  in 
taking  off  my  helmet  with  a  natural 
air,  and  give  the  lunch-card  such  at- 
tention as  seems  to  detach  itself  grudg- 
[  18] 


THE   WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

ingly  from  far  loftier  preoccupations, 
while  handing  the  helmet  to  a  'bus  boy. 
And  yet  I  supposed  I  had  become,  once 
more,  an  unaffected  sort  of  person ! 

I  dare  to  risk  a  glance  about  me  when 
I  have  laid  on  my  plate  the  empty  shell 
of  my  twelfth  oyster.  Bless  me!  the 
people  all  about  are  lunching  two  by 
two  without  worrying  one  bit  about  me 
and  my  oysters.  To  the  assurance 
which  I  regain,  there  would  be  joined  a 
shade  of  bitterness  if  plenty  of  officers, 
of  a  most  fetching  elegance,  were  not 
sitting  at  the  other  tables.  A  young 
colonel,  near  by,  wears  a  marvel  of  a 
uniform.  In  the  little  town  I  left  only 
this  morning  such  an  encounter  would 
have  phased  me  no  end.  Not  here;  be- 
tween this  swagger  colonel  and  the 
bumpish  corporal  that  I  am,  all  distance 
is  obliterated.  There  reigns,  in  this 
place  of  refuge,  a  delicious  equality. 
[  19  1 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

Our  eyes  meet.  Blithely  I  give  him  the 
military  salute,  and  he  returns  it  with 
a  grace  in  which  I  read  a  knowing  re- 
spect for  the  number  of  my  regiment 
and  my  humble  woollen  stripes.  I 
might  even  ask  him  for  a  light  had  I 
need  of  one. 

They  serve  me  rapidly  and  well,  and 
with  excellent  dishes.  I  enjoy  the  food, 
but  its  quality  nowise  astonishes  me. 
Maybe  my  notion  of  lunching  alone 
like  this  is  stupid,  but  I'm  satisfied 
with  the  way  it's  working  out,  and  have 
earned  this  happy  hour.  Droll  that  I 
should  be  here,  I  who  to-morrow  will  be 
out  there  again.  .  .  .  And  you  might 
bring  me  a  Henry  Clay,  waiter ! 

I  pass  out  of  the  restaurant  quite  at 
peace  with  all  the  world,  and  nothing  to 
ask  for  but  some  one  to  talk  to.  The 
air  of  the  street  is  mild,  and  soft-tired 
vehicles  polish  the  asphalt.  This  is  the 
[20] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

Paris  that  I  knew  when,  from  my  bed, 
and  still  drowsy,  I  listened  to  the  di- 
minuendo of  rhythmic  hoof-beats,  or 
the  purring  flight  of  a  smooth-running 
auto.  The  rarefied  sounds  and  cotton- 
wool air  of  this  afternoon  give  one  a 
sense  of  morning  languor.  Ah!  those 
windows ! 

Have  I  not  disobeyed  myself?  Do  I 
truly  owe  it  to  chance  that  I  am  here? 
The  four  windows  I  am  looking  at, 
those  windows  on  the  third  floor  of  the 
modern  apartment-house  in  this  rue 
Tronchet  that  I  like  because  it  is  so 
convenient  and  yet  so  retired,  were  once 
the  centre  of  all  my  thoughts  and  in- 
terests. I  pause,  head  high,  and  mur- 
mur to  myself:  "My  youth !" 

My  youth !    On  reflection,  this  theme 

does  not  deserve  the  'cello  concert  I 

was  on  the  point  of  playing  on  the 

strings  of  memory.     I   seem  to  hear 

[21  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

Alfred  snort  these  two  words — hand  on 
heart — to  mock  at  my  romanticism. 

Alfred,  working  man  of  Paris,  is  my 
sole  confidant  at  the  front.  He  has 
taught  me  how  to  be  simple,  and  to 
distrust  words  that  are  vague.  These 
long  months  of  war  have,  thanks  to 
him,  stocked  me  with  a  brand-new 
mind  where  my  thoughts  play  at  ease, 
free  of  all  rubber-stamps  and  ready- 
made  phrases.  Alas !  in  this  new  brain 
of  mine  Truth  makes  a  first  appear- 
ance. 

Alfred  has  a  great  deal  of  shame  in 
respect  to  his  sentiments  but  no  shame 
at  all  of  the  flesh.  Thus  he  is  the  an- 
tithesis to  my  old  friends.  If,  to  tell 
him  the  story  of  which  these  windows 
were  once  witnesses,  I  imitated  this 
delicacy  of  his,  I  should  have  nothing 
left  to  tell  him.  .  .  .  Alfred,  you  see 
me;  you  are  my  judge.  You  are  right. 
[22] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

This  adventure  was  the  saddest  you  can 
imagine.  I  played  a  poor-spirited  part 
in  it,  and  one  that  lacked  realism.  And 
yet  I  want  to  go  up-stairs,  Alfred,  to 
see  the  young  woman  who  lives  there. 
I  want — just  for  one  moment — to  enjoy 
the  cosey  warmth  of  a  fine  apartment, 
and  this  one  is  so  charming!  You  can 
hardly  realize  how  much  I  used  to  care 
for  these  things.  Come,  I'm  going 
up.  Perhaps  she  won't  be  home  any- 
way. 

She  is  at  home.  After  going  through 
all  the  needful  motions,  motions  into 
which  my  body  still  falls  mechanically, 
after  the  buttons  have  been  pushed  and 
the  doors  opened,  here  I  am  in  her 
presence.  She  is  wearing  a  divine  gown, 
circumspect  and  audacious  all  at  once; 
a  gown  in  which  her  taste  and  the  mode 
are  allies. 

"You  seem  to  have  put  on  weight/' 
[23] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

she  says.  "  And  you  have  the  war-cross. 
That's  splendid,  you  know.  Cest  tres 
chic,  mon  ami!" 

There  used  to  be  some  jolly  canvases 
of  Vuillard's  and  some  fine  spring  pieces 
by  Boggio  in  this  room.  In  their  place, 
in  each  of  the  empty  frames,  I  spy  only 
the  picture-wire. 

"But,  Fabienne,"  I  say  in  my  sur- 
prise, "how  long  have  you  been  col- 
lecting picture-frames?" 

"My  dear,  all  my  pictures  are  at 
Bordeaux.  I  followed  the  government 
there  during  the  exile — like  everybody 
else — and  I  had  the  pictures  rolled, 
with  the  paint  side  out,  according  to 
the  advice  they  gave  me,  and  took  them 
with  me  in  the  motor.  When  we  all 
returned  things  still  looked  a  bit  thick, 
so  I  took  the  precaution  of  leaving  the 
pictures  in  storage  at  Bordeaux." 

"A  needless  precaution,  Fabienne. 
[24] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

But  what  next?  It's  positively  cold  in 
your  apartment  I" 

"  Don't  speak  of  it,  my  friend.  The 
heater  is  broken,  and  it's  a  German  one. 
I've  had  to  send  for  a  new  fixture  all 
the  way  to  Berlin." 

I  start  as  I  echo: 

"To  Berlin,  Fabienne!" 

"Why,  yes,  my  dear,"  says  she;  "that 
is,  by  way  of  Basle.  But,  of  course,  all 
this  takes  centuries." 

And  she  adds  as  our  conversation 
dies  away: 

"You  know,  my  friend,  that  I  am 
iir,  very  ill!" 

Under  the  thin  skin  her  blood  races — 
pure  and  facile.  There  is  no  mistake 
about  the  youthfulness  of  that  flesh; 
the  clearness  of  those  eyes,  the  supple 
and  perfect  play  of  the  body.  And  yet 
my  eyes  very  politely  cloud  at  her  words. 

"Yes,"  she  pursues,  "I  have  cerebral 
[25  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

anaemia.  It  is  this  war,  and  changed 
habits— my  car  requisitioned  and  all! 
I,  who  never  took  a  step!" 

I  murmur,  without  irony,  the  name  of 
a  specialist. 

"My  dear,  I've  consulted  every  one 
who  is  still  here.  Nowadays,  if  you  stop 
to  think,  I've  plenty  of  time.  It  seems 
that  it  is  a  really  serious  case.  But  they 
can't  take  care  of  me  till  after  the  war. 
They  all  agree  on  that." 

By  a  very  deep  inclination  of  my  head 
I  try  to  denote  compassion  for  so  many 
sufferings.  And  now  she  speaks  the 
requisite  words  of  interest  as  to  my 
thirteen  months  of  service,  and  so  pre- 
cisely the  right  ones  tfiat  they  are  most 
convincing.  For  every  one  of  my  stories 
she  has  a  parallel,  and  every  experience 
I  narrate  to  her  suggests  a  new  resem- 
blance with  some  one  of  her  friends,  so 
that  my  pride  grows  weary.  .  .  . 
[26  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

"But,  Fabienne,  tell  me  about  your- 
self, talk  to  me  about  Paris.  What  are 
you  all  doing?" 

"Well,"  she  sighs,  "it  is  stupid  here, 
my  poor  friend,  as  you  probably  re- 
alize. The  newspapers  are  frightful. 
One  reads  about  deaths  day  after  day. 
They  are  sending  the  actors,  even,  to 
the  trenches!  They  say  young  Vernet 
got  killed  very  smartly  indeed.  Of 
course,  you  know  that  Durieux  is  all 
shot  to  pieces?  He  told  me  all  about 
his  sufferings;  that  man  is  a  martyr! 
These  things  don't  exactly  cheer  one 
up,  you  know.  And,  of  course,  you  can't 
go  out.  at  all.  The  most  that  ever  hap- 
pens is  a  dinner  sometimes,  just  between 
friends,  in  morning  frocks.  For  that 
matter,  nobody  could  dress  up  if  they 
wanted  to.  The  cutters  have  been 
mobilized.  You  ought  to  see  the  waist 
and  hips  they  give  me  nowadays!  At 
[27] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

the  theatre,  it  is  revivals — old  stuff  that 
one  can't  get  much  excited  about.  And 
it  is  so  dark  at  night !  The  chauffeurs 
run  into  the  curb.  You  hear  of  nothing 
but  accidents.  It's  safer  to  wait  till 
the  war  is  over.  All  the  same,  I  went  to 
hear  Chenal.  She  is  still  singing  the 
Marseillaise,  and  it's  a  furor!  You 
must  confess  that  she's  perfect  in  it. 
I'd  like  to  hear  Delna  try  it.  Chenal 
puts  all  the  poetry  into  it;  Delna  would 
be  more  brutal,  more  realistic — possibly 
truer.  If  you're  interested,  I'll  write  to 
tell  you  which  one  I  prefer,  after  I've 
heard  Delna.  Then  there  are  the 
knitting-teas.  Generally  they  are  from 
five  to  seven,  and  we  all  work  for  you 
soldiers.  And,  of  course,  we  have  our 
godsons.  Naturally,  I'm  godmother 
for  some  one.  I'd  like  to  have  had  an 
airman,  but  all  the  women  want  air- 
men. It  was  a  telephone-operator  that 
[28] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

I  drew,  as  a  matter  of  fact.  But  when 
will  it  all  be  over?  Have  you  seen  my 
picture  in  my  nurse's  uniform  ?" 

While  she  talks  on  I  am  thinking: 
"Little  one,  I  should  like  to  answer  you 
in  the  language  of  Alfred.  Is  it  con- 
ceivable that,  transposed  by  your  poor 
little  brain,  the  huge  upheaval  which  is 
shaking  this  old  world  of  ours  can  be 
reduced  to  such  silly  twaddle?  Natu- 
rally you  are  not  an  intellectual,  but  you 
aren't  a  silly,  either,  and  you  understand 
whatever  is  explained  to  you.  ...  I 
have  even  succeeded  in  making  you 
wince  a  bit,  in  times  gone  by,  by 
means  of  words  that  were  rather  subtle. 
You  are  a  woman,  and  so,  I  will  concede, 
the  things  that  are  going  on  are  beyond 
your  understanding.  But  your  remain- 
ing exactly  the  same  through  it  all — 
really,  it  turns  my  stomach!  I  have 
just  come  back  to  Paris.  I  didn't  want 
[29] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


to  see  all  its  limitations  the  very  first 
minute.  And  you've  brought  them  all  to 
life !  Apparently  you  don't  realize  what 
a  hell  there  is  an  hour's  motor  ride  from 
here,  in  places  we've  visited  together, 
and  where  I've  just  come  from,  and  am 
going  to  return  to.  Men,  my  dear,  are 
made  like  this:  they  die,  but  they  want 
your  admiration;  they  suffer,  but  want 
your  pity.  It  is  our  solace,  out  there,  to 
think  that  behind  us  Paris  holds  its 
breath,  and  waits.  .  .  .  Moreover,  we 
often  tell  ourselves  that  if  we  have  not 
yet  been  loved  as  well  as  we  could  have 
wished,  it  is  because  we  haven't,  so  far 
anyway,  done  anything  extraordinary. 
But  it  seems  to  us  as  if  now,  raised  so 
high  above  what  we  used  to  be,  we  must 
be  surprising  you  a  little !  Oh,  we  aren't 
proud  out  there;  there  are  too  many 
of  us  doing  the  same  things  for  that! 
All  the  same,  I've  said  to  myself  three  or 
[30] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  >  . 

four  times  already:  'What  if  my  girls 
could  see  me  now!'  Ah,  little  one,  as- 
sisting at  this  great  drama  as  if  it  were 
being  played  for  you  in  some  foreign 
tongue,  and  conscious  only  of  the  length 
and  boredom  of  it,  I  am  tempted  to 
translate  it  for  you !  I  have  in  my  head 
some  pictures  of  it  that  would  make  you 
faint,  some  recollections  that  would 
craze  you !  I  have  seen  the  torn  bodies 
of  my  comrades  smoking  in  the  air  at 
my  side.  I  have  charged,  death  in  my 
mouth,  with  this  one  thought:  Some- 
thing has  got  to  break,  either  them 
or  me,  their  mass  or  my  flesh!  On, 
then!  In  God's  name,  blast  their 
eyes  and  at  them!  Stick  their  bellies 
and  smash  their  jaws!  I'd  like  to  tell 
you  about  all  that — in  your  little  sa- 
lon." 

Instead,  I  rise  and  smile  foolishly: 
"Good-by,  Fabienne,  a  bientot." 
[31  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

She,  too,  rises,  politely  protesting: 

"What?  So  soon?  Oh — you  Ye  din- 
ing out." 

I  allege  the  great  number  of  errands 
I  have  to  attend  to. 

"Well,  then,  you'll  come  back,"  she 
insists.  "You  told  me  you'd  come  to 
Paris  all  by  yourself." 

This  time  I  say  "No"  pointblank. 
She  looks  at  me  a  little  surprised  and, 
pouting,  adds: 

"Oh,  well!  .  .  .  But,  do  you  know, 
you  haven't  changed  much.  ..." 

And  here  I  am  in  the  street  again, 
where  pass,  in  the  long,  undyed  cloaks 
that  are  the  fashion  nowadays,  Fabiennes 
whom  I  do  not  know.  What  are  they 
thinking  about?  Have  they  husbands 
or  brothers  at  the  front?  Are  they  on 
the  way  to  meet  somebody?  No  one 
can  say,  now  or  ever;  for  theirs  are  the 
[32] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

grave  and  wheedling  eyes  of  the  happy 
wife  or  fashionable  mistress,  and  that 
busy  air  of  theirs  makes  them  twice  as 
mysterious  as  they  would  be  without 
it.  Have  they  men  to  love  them — ' 
and  what  men?  The  street  is  full  of 
men!  Why  are  there  so  many?  This 
one  who  is  walking  at  my  side  is  of  my 
age,  but  he  is  not  a  soldier.  His  civilian 
clothes  ought  to  make  him  itch,  all  the 
same !  I  want  him  to  see  my  war-cross. 
And  the  fellow  by  the  kiosk,  who  spends 
so  much  time  reading  the  theatre-bills  I 
For  that  matter,  all  the  theatres  are 
open.  They  are  playing  reviews.  And 
people  go.  What  frame  of  mind  reigns 
here,  then?  Why  were  there  so  many 
people  at  my  restaurant  just  now? 
They  were  gay  at  some  of  the  tables. 
Some  of  them  even  laughed  very  nois- 
ily. What  are  all  these  people  thinking 
about  ?  Apparen  tly  they  have  adj  usted 
[33] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

themselves  to  the  war;  they  have  made 
a  habit  of  it.  ... 

In  the  little  town  I  have  come  from 
the  comic  films  drew  enormous  crowds 
to  the  moving  pictures.  And  in  the 
evening,  at  the  Alcazar,  we  applauded 
singers  made  up  like  women,  their 
lapels  ornamented  with  camellias  as 
big  as  a  cabbage.  They  sang  patriotic 
ballads  and  camp-songs.  And  the  ci- 
vilians one  saw  here  and  there  were  ex- 
tremely quiet.  I  laughed  at  all  these 
jumping-jacks,  even  at  the  fat  man  all 
in  azure  who,  lately  nominated  as  an 
officer  of  the  quartermaster's  staff  with 
some  kind  of  job  in  connection  with 
uniforming  the  troops,  told  me  very  in- 
genuously: "Now  I  can  ask  to  go  to  the 
front  without  the  least  risk,  and  that 
will  be  very  useful  to  me.  I  publish  a 
Republican  newspaper.  We  mustn't 
forget  the  elections.  And  if  I  drew  a 
[34] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


little  shell-wound  in  the  buttocks,  where 
it  wouldn't  disfigure  me,  why,  that  would 
positively  give  me  a  halo."  Yes,  out 
there,  poor  souls  like  that  made  me 
laugh  with  all  my  heart.  But  that 
folks  should  be  unchanged  here  at  Paris, 
that  breaks  my  heart !  I  don't  want  it 
to  be  like  this.  It  was  Paris  I  thought 
of  when  my  weariness  was  too  much  or 
when  death  was  too  close.  Paris!  the 
word  electrified  me.  And  Paris,  the 
while,  had  kept  her  harlot's  heart! 
Perhaps  we  are  only  ridiculous  after  all, 
mud-caked,  lousy,  bearded,  beguiled, 
with  the  spectre  of  this  second  winter 
campaign  before  us,  the  campaign  we 
were  sure,  last  year,  we  were  incapable 
of  repeating — "You  can't  stand  this 
racket  twice" — and  for  which  we  are 
setting  out  again,  docile,  resigned,  can- 
did. Who  is  fooling  us?  Whose  dupes 
are  we?  Ah,  I  feel  myself  a  coward.. 
[35] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

It  is  cold.  The  Germans  are  stronger 
than  we.  I  ought  to  have  died  at  Vir- 
ton. 

Two  young  women  in  the  deep  mourn- 
ing of  widows  are  face  to  face  with  me. 
They  are  talking  very  loud  and  their 
dull  black  shows  off  their  faces  of 
enamel  and  milk.  I  see,  under  their 
floating  veils,  the  powdered  cheeks,  the 
made-up  eyelashes,  the  too  vivid  red  of 
their  lips.  .  .  . 

We  are  a  weary  nation  that  was  cap- 
able, when  put  to  the  test,  of  buoyancy, 
of^a  burst  of  vigor.  But  after  twelve 
months  of  it  we  fall  back  again.  We 
can't  hold  the  pose  for  a  year.  People 
have  become  again  what  they  were  be- 
fore. And  many  of  them  grow  fat  on 
this  war!  Truly,  our  age  is  without 
beauty.  The  breath  of  the  passing 
tempest  has  but  revealed  the  real  mo- 
tives which  move  us,  shown  up  the  in- 
[36] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

anity  of  marriage  and  of  love,  and  made 
both  life  and  death  uglier  than  before. 

And  I,  I  am  going  back  to  it.  And 
no  end  in  sight !  Are  the  English  doing 
their  part?  ...  I  am  afraid.  Too 
often  have  I  passed  untouched  through 
the  hail  of  bullets,  too  many  times  the 
marmites  have  killed  my  neighbors  only. 
I  am  Fate's  debtor,  and  Fate  will  not 
forget  me  always.  I  know  it,  I  feel  it: 
I  shall  be  killed !  And  the  crowds  will 
go  on  walking  past  these  shop-windows. 

Three  o'clock.  I  still  have  five  hours 
to  myself.  What  am  I  going  to  do  with 
them?  I  can't  stay  by  myself  all  those 
five  hours ! 

I  move  slowly  (for  I  am  not  sur£  that 
I  like  the  idea)  toward  the  house  in 
the  rue  de  Rome  where  my  old  friend 
Madame  Baumer  lives.  This  part  of 
town  disgusts  me.  How  can  any  one 
settle  down  close  to  a  railroad-station? 
[37] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

Who  wants  to  live  in  a  vestibule? 
These  up-hill  streets  are  tiresome ! 

Madame  must  be  at  home,  the  con- 
cierge (who  recognizes  me)  agrees.  Miss 
Suzanne  is  at  her  hospital,  that  she 
visits  every  day.  There  is  good  news 
from  Mr.  Jean.  I  go  up. 

Madame  Baumer  is  fond  of  me  as 
her  son's  oldest  friend  and  the  friend 
who  talks  about  him  the  best.  She 
adores  Jean,  but  her  lively  sensibility 
permits  her  to  read  too  clearly  in  him 
certain  manly  reactions  which  shock 
her  feminine  nature.  Hence  occasional 
spats.  I,  who  am  not  her  child,  conceal 
from  her  better  than  he  the  things  it  is 
well  for  a  man  to  hide,  and,  very  close 
to  her  and  very  close  to  him,  I  am  an 
easy  bond  of  union.  And  we  are  great 
friends.  Come!  we  will  talk  about 
Jean. 

The  door-bell  emits  so  resonant  a 
[38  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  ... 

ring  in  this  close  air  that  it  vibrates 
unendingly,  as  if  the  sound  of  it  couldn't 
escape.  ...  I  wait.  They  always  did 
have  a  horrid  habit  of  being  slow  to 
answer  the  bell  here.  Will  they  keep 
me  waiting  in  the  parlor,  too?  The 
silence  sings  around  me.  At  last  Ma- 
dame Baumer  enters.  She  has  aged. 

"Good  day,  madame." 

Naturally  I,  who  have  come  to  see 
her,  who  have  been  waiting  for  her  at 
this  door,  have  spoken  this  good  day 
quite  as  a  matter  of  course.  She,  on 
the  other  hand,  shows  in  her  reply  how 
upset  she  is. 

"You!"  she  exclaims.  "It  is  you, 
Maurice!" 

She  stretches  out  two  nervous  hands. 
And  here  we  are,  face  to  face,  both  si- 
lent, till  we  can  get  into  tune  with  one 
another:  she,  disconcerted  by  my  calm 
and  surprised  that,  after  such  great 
[39] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

happenings,  I  am  here,  just  the  same  as 
ever;  I,  embarrassed  at  having  put  her 
*out.  And,  as  we  know  very  well  that 
we  are  going  first  of  all  to  say  to  one  an- 
other the  banal  phrases  necessary  for 
picking  up  the  thread  of  things,  we 
wilfully  prolong  this  silence  which  is 
friendly  to  the  emotion  our  words  will 
destroy.  Finally,  smiling,  I  murmur: 

"Yes,  here  we  are  again.  How  are 
you?" 

"How  do  you  come  to  be  here?" 
she  inquires.  "Is  it  for  long?  Where 
do  you  come  from?" 

On  my  part  I,  too,  recite  the  indis- 
pensable string  of  questions: 

"How  is  Jean?  What  is  Suzanne 
doing?" 

And  now  we  who  were  mute  talk  both 

at  once  of  a  thousand  subjects  that 

crowd  one  another,  trip  one  another  up, 

and  submerge  us.    All  that  we  had  to 

[40] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

tell  one  another  that  was  so  important, 
so  grave,  is  now  between  the  two  of  us 
like  a  parcel  of  tangled  silk  threads 
where  all  shades  are  jumbled  together, 
the  precious  ones  with  the  rest,  till  it 
is  nothing  but  a  disorder  that  is  many- 
colored  yet  flat,  with  no  one  color  stand- 
ing out  above  the  rest.  Stories  that  we 
have  never  told  any  one  precipitate 
themselves  toward  the  life  of  speech 
with  an  ardor  so  fiery  that  they  knock 
each  other  down,  dent  each  other,  and 
are  totally  lost,  and  often  they  receive, 
from  these  first  shocks,  scars  that  eter- 
nally disfigure  them. 

This  tale  of  my  long  campaign,  that  I 
have  just  spoiled  so  in  the  telling,  can 
I  ever  make  it  live  again  in  its  boyish 
vigor,  its  awkward  and  unsophisticated 
sincerity  ?  How  many  bungled  verities ! 
I  have  nothing  more  to  say  now,  and  I 
shuffle  my  heavy,  hobnailed  boots  on 
[41  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

the  carpet,  in  something  like  bad  hu- 
mor. 

I  accept  the  suggestion  of  tea  that 
Madame  Baumer  lightly  offers,  just  as  if 
afternoon  tea  were  still  a  natural  act  for 
me.  I  haven't  any  appetite  or  desire  for 
it,  but  am  happy  to  have  the  diversion. 
The  chambermaid,  whose  name  comes 
back  to  me  the  minute  I  see  her,  rolls 
in  the  tea-wagon,  already  spread.  I 
salute  there,  as  old  friends,  the  toasted 
biscuit  of  yore,  a  brand  to  which  this 
household  has  been  faithful  for  a  life- 
time. I  recognize  also  this  chocolate- 
pot  that,  you  remember,  I  used  to  think 
was  ugly,  madame,  and  that  I  still  do 
think  ugly.  How  like  old  times  every- 
thing is!  Present  and  past  are  united 
as  easily  by  this  terrible  year  as  our 
hands  above  this  plate. 

My  attention,  lost  for  an  instant  in 
the  motionless  folds  of  the  big  por- 
[42] 


THE   WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

tieres,  returns  to  Madame  Baumer. 
Her  eyes  shine,  as  if  with  moisture. 
What  is  wrong  ?  She  turns  her  head 
and  opens  her  eyelids  wide  to  give  two 
pearls  of  water  which  well  from  the 
shelter  of  her  eyelashes  a  chance  to  be 
absorbed  again.  But  the  pearls  are 
inflating  very  fast  and,  already  too 
heavy,  start  rolling  down  those  pale, 
worn  cheeks.  And  Madame  Baumer  is 
looking  at  me. 

"You  see,  Maurice,"  says  she,  "we 
have  our  afternoon  tea.  It  is  served 
like  this  every  day.  I  live  in  cotton- 
wool while  you  all  are  out  there !  What 
would  I  have  thought,  a  year  ago,  if 
some  one  had  told  me  that  I  could  eat, 
sleep,  gossip,  and  look  to  a  thousand 
domestic  trifles,  letting  myself  be  dis- 
tracted and  forget,  while  Jean  was  in 
danger,  and  while  I  knew  it !  We  talk, 
and  eat  cake,  and  perhaps  at  this  very 
[  43  1 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

instant.  .  .  .  And  I  can  live  like  this ! 
Live!  Oh,  sometimes  it  is  too  much  for 
me!  I  should  like " 

"Madame!" 

Her  tears  are  flowing  faster.  And  it 
makes  me  positively  happy  to  feel  for 
the  first  time  that  at  Paris,  too,  there 
is  a  war. 

She  has  straightened  her  thin  shoul- 
ders and  commences  again: 

"Yes,  it  is  too  much  for  me  some- 
times, and  drives  me  frantic.  If  you 
knew  how  frightful  it  is,  all  this  routine 
of  a  house  that  runs  on  just  exactly  the 
same!  I  have  nightmares  occasionally. 
I  see  cavalry  charging.  .  .  .  And  when 
I  awake  there  is  the  bath  waiting,  and 
breakfast,  and  my  dresses,  and  the 
letters  that  people  write  who  are  tired 
of  hoping  and  calculating  and  predict- 
ing and  have  gone  back  to  talking  about 
themselves.  Where  is  Jean  all  this 
[44] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


time?  What  is  he  doing?  And  you 
who  are  here  to-day,  where  will  you  be 
to-morrow,  Maurice?" 

I  cover  up  a  happy  smile. 

"Madame,  these  are  romantics.  The 
cakes,  the  hot  tea — and  the  horrors  of 
war!  Look  at  me.  What  would  Jean 
think  if  he  could  hear  you?  Why, 
Lieutenant  Baumer,  madame,  is  at  this 
moment  enjoying  his  tea,  too,  in  his 
Canha,  and  very  comfortably,  and  drink- 
ing two  cups  to  our  one.  As  he  has  a 
first-class  pastry-cook  as  orderly,  his 
cakes  are  first  cousins  to  yours.  That 
for  your  antithesis!  Come!  Come! 
Trust  him  a  little !  Listen,  I'm  going  to 
explain  it  all  to  you.  I  shut  my  eyes. 
I  can  see  him.  To-day,  precisely,  he  is 
in  the  first-line  trenches.  Don't  put  on 
that  tragic  look !  He  is  sitting,  without 
a  care,  in  the  shelter  that  he  has  as 
section  chief,  under  his  roof  of  sticks 
[45] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

and  dirt.  He  is  dressed  like  a  private 
in  a  moon-blue,  hooded  cloak  and  that 
admirable  modern  helmet  which  comes 
down  to  us,  all  the  same,  from  such 
far-away  traditions — that  light  Bur- 
gundian  casque,  so  strong  and  quasi- 
religious,  which  gives  our  men  out  there, 
when  there  is  a  group  of  them,  the  look 
of  a  celestial  army;  strange  head-gear, 
I  agree,  for  the  head  of  a  puny  Pa- 
risian, but  splendid  when  our  soldiers 
wear  it,  and  marvellously  symbolic  of 
our  rustic  but  gentle  France  with  her 
peasant  strength.  It  is  by  this  casque 
and  this  blue  that  they  will  enter  into 
their  legend.  .  .  .  Your  Jean  looks 
well  in  his  helmet  and  horizon-blue. 
To  a  button  of  his  cloak  he  has  hung  his 
gas-mask,  in  a  cloth  bag.  From  time 
to  time  he  draws  his  revolver  and  amuses 
himself  by  aiming  at  a  rat.  On  the 
table  his  orderly,  Foil,  has  set  the  tea 
[46] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

and  butter  biscuit.  He  munches  one, 
while,  lying  on  the  bed  with  its  iron 
springs  and  straw  mattress,  Tissot,  his 
inseparable  friend  that  he  has  no  doubt 
told  you  about — twenty  years  old,  and 
an  under-lieutenant  because  he  is  a  Supe- 
rior Normal  School  man — reads  to  him 
from  one  of  the  books  of  poetry  his  can- 
teen is  always  full  of.  Outside,  natu- 
rally, a  cyclone  of  77-centimetre  shells. 
.  .  .  But  why  do  you  object  to  that 
cyclone  of  77's?  Jean  is  there  ex- 
pressly to  observe  the  effects  of  them. 
Two  French  monoplanes  escape  from  a 
swarm  of  little  white  puffs.  .  .  .  Elvire, 
aux  yeux  baisses,  reads  Tissot  in  his  girl 
voice,  and  Jean,  who  adores  these  verses 
and  listens  to  them  rapturously,  says 
softly,  'Tissot,  how  you  do, cackle!'  just 
to  hide  his  pleasure. 

"No   doubt   I  shall  see  Jean.     His 
regiment  and  mine  are  in  the  same  bri- 
[47] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

gade,  and,  though  there  have  been  some 
famous  shifts  in  our  sector  these  days,  I 
count  on  not  being  far  from  him.  Do 
you  want  me  to  tell  him  that  you  cried? 
Come,  don't  listen  to  that  imagination 
of  yours.  It's  a  chatterbox,  and  it  fibs 
to  you.  Jean  is  in  high  spirits  when  he 
is  at  the  front — fighting  always  gives 
one  high  spirits;  in  the  first  place,  it  is 
action,  and  then  there  are  a  lot  of  you. 
Why,  it  is  in  the  toughest  moments 
that  you  feel  the  craziest  gayety  I  When 
the  campaign  had  just  begun  I  was 
awfully  scared.  I  can  still  see  myself 
lying  in  a  beet-field,  in  the  sun,  wearing 
the  old  red  breeches,  that  seem  now  to 
date  from  another  age.  Little  stifled 
rustlings,  that  sounded  as  if  they  might 
be  field-mice  and  things  hurrying  down 
into  their  holes  in  the  ground,  punctured 
the  ground  at  my  side,  behind  me,  far, 
near,  everywhere.  And  the  sweat 
[48] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

streamed  from  my  body,  from  my  face, 
from  my  eyes — watering  the  whole 
field.  I  was  waiting  for  the  bullet 
that  would  come  and  find  lodgment  in 
the  ground,  after  passing  through  my 
skull  or  my  back.  My  imagination 
traced  in  advance  the  lightning  route  of 
its  passage.  Oh,  I  was  very  badly  in- 
formed. I  lacked  practice  so!  But 
somebody  was  creeping  up  to  me — close. 
I  recognized  the  tall  lieutenant  whom  I 
liked  because  he  was  so  graceful.  He 
called  me,  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  on  ac- 
count of  the  hubbub:  'Vernier!' — He 
actually  knew  my  name! — 'My  lieuten- 
ant?'— 'Here,  my  wallet — it's  in  the  left 
pocket  of  my  jacket/ — 'Yes,  my  lieu- 
tenant. And  mine  is  in  the  left  pocket 
of  my  capote/ — 'I  see.  Look  sharp; 
we're  going  to  make  a  push/  The  soil 
was  chipped  off  by  a  shell  at  our  very 
sides.  'Fiji  .  .  .  piji  .  .  .  piji.  .  .  /' 
[49] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

chuckled  the  swarming  rifle-balls.  But 
too  late;  the  lieutenant  and  I  had  come 
to  an  understanding !  Ah,  but  wasn't  I 
happy  all  of  a  sudden !  Happy  doesn't 
half  express  it.  All  my  blood  was  danc- 
ing a  fandango  of  joy  through  my  veins. 
You  see,  I  had  found  a  pal,  a  fellow  of 
my  own  sort,  who  would  understand. 
What  did  anything  else  matter?  The 
sun  blinded  our  eyes  with  its  midsummer 
glare.  Puffs  of  blackish  smoke  burst 
without  darkening  an  azure  sky  like 
the  skies  in  fairyland.  On  the  left,  a 
chateau  was  burning  on  its  hilltop — 
burning  methodically,  like  the  good 
castle  it  was.  The  rabbits  were  beating 
it  from  the  invasion  of  their  fields. 
The  row  the  batteries  made  was  so 
tremendous  that  it  became  really  ridicu- 
lous. What  in  the  name  of  common 
sense  would  it  have  mattered  if  Vernier, 
Maurice,  had  died  there? 
[50] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

11  And  I  leaped  forward.  Whilst  I 
was  running,  drunk  with  faintness  and 
delight,  I  began  singing  at  the  top  of  my 
voice  that  motif  of  'Scheherazade'  that 
has  run  in  our  heads  ever  since  the  last 
Ballet  Russe,  exaggerating  still  further 
the  furious,  wild  air  of  it:  'Si  do  re,  do  re! 
fa  mi  re,  do  re!  .  .  .  do  si  do  re  do.'  At 
the  climax  of  it,  when  there  came  a 
shell,  sliding  on  I  know  not  what  aerial 
rails,  and  wrecked  the  atmosphere  above 
me,  I  paused  a  few  seconds,  nose  deep  in 
my  beet-roots,  shrivelled  myself  up  as 
small  as  possible  under  my  knapsack, 
and  waited  for  the  explosion  to  bring 
death  or  relief.  Then,  when  it  was  all 
over,  I  picked  up  my  tune  again,  tipsy 
with  joy :  lLa  sol  la  do  si,  la  si  sol! '  I  was 
never  in  such  high  spirits  in  all  my  life." 

Madame  Baumer  shook  her  head. 

"You  are  a  kind  friend.  But  I  knew 
that  already.  One  only  has  to  read  your 
[51  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

letters  to  know  you  all,  children  that 
you  are.  No  doubt,  your  hearts  are  the 
salt  of  the  earth,  and  you  live  gayly  in 
the  face  of  death,  without  a  care.  But 
death  is  there  all  the  same,  and  at  the 
very  minute  I  am  talking  to  you  is 
robbing  me  of  my  child,  perhaps.  Oh, 
if  you  only  knew  the  anguish  I  suffer  a 
hundred  times  a  day,  and  how  it  wakes 
me  up  at  night,  stone-cold;  if  you  knew 
how  it  makes  me  shiver  when  the  bell 
rings,  or  the  postman  comes,  and  I 
think:  'This  time  it  will  be  bad  news!' 
For  that's  the  way  it  would  happen; 
some  one  would  ring  the  door-bell  and 
Lucie  would  come  with  a  letter,  or  to 
say  there  was  a  caller " 

But  I  break  in  upon  her  voice,  half- 
drowned  in  tears: 

"What  a  neurasthenic  you're  becom- 
ing! We  don't  think  so  much  as  all 
that,  we  others !  Action  purges  us  of  all 
[52  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

those  toxic  poisons  that  come  from  re- 
flecting too  much.  Why  do  you  believe 
in  the  probability  of  an  outcome  that 
no  one  of  us  believes  is  possible  even? 
We,  why,  we  are  too  proud  to  think 
that  we  can  be  wounded.  You  would 
do  well  to  cultivate  this  same  pride, 
that  gets  the  better  of  bad  luck.  Take 
my  word  for  it,  we  take  all  the  proper 
precautions,  but  it  is  from  superstition 
and  an  instinctive  need  of  obeying  the 
rules  of  the  game  rather  than  from  fear 
of  any  accident.  When  some  comrade 
falls  near  me  I  know,  I  am  positively 
certain,  that  if  I  had  been  in  his  place 
no  such  thing  would  have  happened 
tome.  Don't  you  see?  Each  of  us  has 
absolute  confidence  in  the  powers  which 
will  that  he  shall  live.  The  big  shells 
are  meant  for  other  folks.  One  says  to 
himself:  'I !  I  whom  they  are  expect- 
ing at  home;  I  who  am  here  with  this 
[53  1 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

hand  of  mine;  I  who  march  in  the  mid- 
dle of  so  many  men  without  ever  getting 
myself  mixed  up  with  them;  I  whose 
coat  just  like  the  other  coats  remains 
all  the  same  my  coat;  I  who  feel  every- 
thing, who  see  everything,  who,  when 
we  are  hungry,  am  hungrier  than  the 
rest,  and  when  we  are  thirsty,  am  thirs- 
tier; I  who  suffer  more  and  enjoy 
things  more;  I  who  have  only  to  shut 
my  eyes  to  stop  the  life  of  the  whole 
world;  I  who  am  perhaps  the  cause  of 
this  war  (for  isn't  it  to  punish  me  for 
having  shirked  my  second  year's  mili- 
tary service  that  Fate  has  wanted  to 
make  me  a  soldier  again?);  I,  finally, 
Vernier,  I,  Maurice,  raison  d'etre  of 
the  universe — how  could  it  come  about 
that  /  should  die?  If  the  others  are 
killed,  that  is  to  even  things  up  with 
my  good  luck ! — And  that  is  what  every 
one  of  us  thinks.  It  is  so  strong,  one's 
[54] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

sureness  of  surviving,  that  you  can't 
help  jollying  him  a  little,  this  Death 
who  won't  get  you,  who  is  afraid  of  you. 
Death  may  strike  close  beside  you  and 
spatter  you  with  blood,  but  you  feel 
yourself  far  from  Death,  so  far  that 
you  haven't  even  any  sense  of  physical 
repulsion.  Shall  I  confess  it?  This 
Death  who  has  touched  so  many  com- 
rades near  me,  so  many  friends — some- 
times I  feel  an  intellectual  curiosity 
about  him,  as  if  it  were  some  one  whom 
I  shall  never  meet,  even,  unless  I  stir  my 
stumps.  Is  that  a  little  perverse? 
Standing  on  the  plain  some  day,  if  a 
bullet  grazed  me,  it  wouldn't  be,  I'm 
certain,  the  instinct  of  safety  that  would 
make  me  drop,  but  a  sort  of  fatherly 
appeal  from  my  reason,  something  like 
this:  'Come,  now,  you  big  fool;  get  off 
of  that;  you're  going  to  finish  by  getting 
yourself  killed!' 

[55] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

"  Since  we  cannot  die,  why  on  earth 
do  our  mothers  persist  in  being  afraid 
of  our  dying  ?" 

"Oh,  Maurice/'  says  Madame  Bau- 
mer,  "  what  fine  speeches  you  make,  and 
how  you  do  get  wound  up!" 

"—But  if  we  do  get  hit,  all  the 
same,  and  have  a  second  time  to  see 
how  wrong  we  were,  and  how  pre- 
sumptuous— that  does  not  make  us  the 
least  bit  sore.  You  take  the  blow, 
you  are — surprised,  and  you  accept 
the  adventure  because  they  would  be 
only  too  happy — they,  over  there,  the 
enemy,  Fate,  all  the  elements  that 
knock  you  out — if  they  knew  that  you 
were  groaning  or  raging.  An  immense 
resignation,  made  up  of  a  lot  of  pride 
and  a  lot  of  humility,  that  is  what  fills 
the  eyes  of  our  men  in  moments  like 
these:  the  pride  of  the  individual  whose 
brave  soul  defies  blind  forces,  and  a 
[56] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

sense  of  the  futility  of  our  poor  human 
race,  with  which  higher  powers  make 
their  sport.  Death,  out  there,  is  never 
tragical,  madame!  I  still  hear  little 
Bossard  under  the  hail  of  machine 
guns  shouting:  'We're  falling  like  flies. 
Mustn't  stay  here.  Forward!'  and 
starting  to  sing  as  he  takes  his  first  leap: 
'Aupres  de  ma  blonde1 — and  falling  back 
with  a  thud,  jesting  in  a  weaker  voice: 
4  Badoum !  Versailles.  .  .  .  End  of  the 
line!'  ' 

Madame  Baumer  hides  her  eyes. 

" Don't,"  she  urges.  "It's  fright- 
ful!" 

I  repeat  stubbornly: 

"No,  death  is  never  tragic.  That  is 
what  you  must  be  told.  Death  for  one- 
self, death  for  others,  we  accept  it 
either  way  without  a  protest.  Two 
days  after  that  battle  where  I  sang 
'Scheherazade'  we  had  a  reunion — all 
[57  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

shaved,  and  washed,  and  freshened  up — 
at  a  bully  dinner  in  the  village  hotel. 
And  though  lots  of  our  friends  were 
missing,  we  behaved  like  schoolboys  on 
vacation.  We  teased  little  Jannetaz, 
who,  at  the  regimental  cantine,  always 
asks  for  three  helps  of  jam  and  drinks 
his  tea  lukewarm  and  weak,  and  four 
pieces  of  sugar  in  it:  a  sort  of  girl  who 
blushes  every  time  you  speak  his  name 
above  a  whisper,  but  who,  under  fire, 
when  the  sergeants  had  all  been  killed 
off,  commanded  his  section  and  led  the 
boys  way  forward,  when  they  were 
about  ready  to  give  it  up.  And  big 
Foulon  drew  from  his  pocket  a  wallet  of 
black  watered  silk  with  gold  trimmings, 
soaked  all  through  with  sweat,  and 
showed  me,  between  puffs  on  his  pipe, 
and  with  an  affected  indifference,  photo- 
graphs of  a  young  woman,  a  curtain, 
a  big  lamp,  the  light  silk  of  a  lamp 
[58] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

shade,  the  orderly  disorder  of  a  table 
— all  the  while  watching  my  reaction. 
'Oh,  Foulon,  I  liked  those  dresses,  too! 
How  I  loved  the  ladies  and  their  fine 
furniture!'  It  was  a  party  that  in- 
cluded some  sublime  wines  that  a  good 
many  of  us,  being  youngsters,  didn't 
appreciate  very  well,  but  drank  up  very 
well  indeed.  We  raised  our  glasses  to 
the  memory  of  comrades  fallen  the  day 
before,  and  even  this  act  was  a  gay  one. 
Hunger,  thirst,  exhaustion  had  given  us 
back  simple  souls.  We  had  rediscovered 
the  antique  conception  of  death.  Three 
days  before  we  had  had  a  jolly  dinner 
with  the  men  who  had  just  been  killed; 
we  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  them  in 
the  marching  column,  above  the  heads 
of  the  soldiers,  and  then  had  lost  them 
from  sight  again  when  we  all  deployed 
on  the  skirmish-line.  And  if  they  hadn't 
come  back  to  us,  that  seemed  to  us  so 
[59] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

simple,  so  necessary  from  the  point  of 
view  of  our  new  life,  that  we  were  not 
even  moved  by  it.  Our  toast  was  like 
the  easy  hand-shake  of  good-by  you 
give  to  some  one  you  are  glad  to  have 
seen  again,  but  from  whom  you  separate 
without  regret,  although  you  are  making 
no  new  rendezvous  because,  you  see, 
your  life  is  already  so  full !  You  wave 
your  hand,  and  pass  on,  and  speak  with- 
out turning:  'Good-by.  I  was  glad  to 
see  you.  But  I  must  be  off.'  We  re- 
called their  last  adventures.  We  laughed 
a  good  deal.  We  sketched  humorous 
portraits  of  them.  We  did  not  think 
about  their  cold  and  bloody  bodies  of 
that  day,  but  of  their  clear  minds  of 
the  day  before,  and  it  was  their  living 
image  that  our  memories  laid  out  for 
burial. 

"Listen.    I've  just  remembered  a  de- 
tail that  will  show  you  how  happy-go- 
[60] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

lucky  we  were  on  the  morrow  of  that 
day  when  so  many  bodies  fell,  on  the 
eve  of  such  grave  battles.  As  we  were 
forcing  ourselves  a  bit  to  empty  the 
last  bottles,  Foulon,  who  was  prowling 
all  over  the  place,  suddenly  jumped  up 
on  the  table,  waving  a  derby  hat  and 
uttering  a  thousand  oh's  and  ah's  as  if 
he  had  discovered  the  most  amazing 
thing  in  the  universe:  'Gentlemen,  I 
have  picked  a  melon  I'*  Oh,  the  re- 
ception we  gave  him!  We  fought  for 
that  hat.  Foulon  shoved  us  all  back, 
promising  every  one  a  turn  at  it.  It 
was  a  very  decent  hat.  Each  of  us 
tried  it  on,  coquettishly,  and  looked  hard 
into  the  mirror  to  rediscover  his  old 
self,  his  physiognomy  of  peace  times: 
a  time  five  or  six  weeks  past,  but  it 
seemed  like  ages.  We  laughed  till  we 
were  out  of  breath  at  the  surprises  our 
*  In  French,  the  derby  hat  is  called  a  '  melon.' 
[61  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME 


comrades  gave  us  under  that  hat,  which 
insidiously  revealed  their  taste,  type, 
and  character;  bringing  to  the  surface 
individualities  lost  under  the  uniform; 
re-establishing  social  classes.  And  this 
child's  play  lasted  till  one  of  us, 
tired  of  laughing,  buckled  on  his  bay- 
onet and  said:  'So  long,  fellows.  I  am 
going  on  guard  as  corporal,  and  we 
are  the  rear-guard  relief;  weVe  got 
something  else  to  do  besides  rough- 
house/  ' 

"Yes,  Maurice,"  says  Madame 
Baumer,  "you  jest  at  death.  You 
show  it  to  us  as  something  accepted, 
something  gentle,  something  almost  de- 
sirable. Are  you  telling  us  the  truth? 
I'm  by  no  means  sure.  You  have  such 
a  sincere  way!  But  the  wounds, 
Maurice?  The  horror  of  torn  and  tor- 
tured flesh. 

"Yes,  I  know.  And  yet,  in  the  sta- 
[62] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

tions,  when  train-loads  of  the  wounded 
go  by,  men  exhausted  from  hemorrhages, 
fever,  and  travel,  women  go  to  the  cars 
and  hand  up  wine  and  fruit.  They  give 
the  men  pencils,  too,  and  post-cards  so 
that  they  can  write  and  send  news  to 
their  families.  But  often  men  are  too 
weak  to  write  and  the  women  do  it  for 
them.  Do  you  know  what  these  un- 
fortunates always,  invariably,  dictate — 
these  men  whose  flesh  is  bleeding  under 
their  bandages?  An  address,  and  then: 
'Everything  is  all  right/ ' 

Madame  Baumer  listens  and  re- 
flects. 

4 'You  are  heroes, "  she  says. 

I  pout.  In  talking  to  her  I  was  far 
from  all  that.  I  was  thinking  about  my 
depleted  company,  my  comrades,  my 
war.  This  word  of  hers  jerks  me  back 
to  Paris.  And  I  sigh: 

"Alas!  And  now  you're  talking  like 
[63] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

a  newspaper!  For  us  words  like  'hero' 
have  no  meaning.  Yes,  yes,  I  know, 
they  call  us  Valiant  soldiers'  and  'sub- 
lime blesses/  They  never  separate  ad- 
jective and  noun.  It  is  too  much  like 
*  distinguished  economist/  And,  you 
know,  we  aren't  heroic.  Modern  war 
demands,  most  of  the  time,  that  passive 
form  of  energy  which  is  called  resig- 
nation. We  make,  when  it  is  asked  of 
us,  our  little  effort — but  we  don't  go  into 
any  of  its  motives:  grandeur  of  race, 
beauty  of  action,  superlative  curiosity, 
or  supermanhood.  We  obey  obscure 
laws  and  derive  no  pride  therefrom  be- 
cause in  France  one  is  never  very  proud 
of  having  merely  obeyed.  When  you 
march  and  make  an  advance  you  find 
it  a  bit  stupid  in  folks  that  they  should 
insist  on  translating  such  precise  words, 
words  that  are  so  full  of  meaning, 
by  the  words  'bound'  and  'gallantly 
[64] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

storm/    We  have  become  simple  men 
once  more/' 

"  Agreed,    Maurice— but    much    too 
modest!" 

"Not  at  all!  The  biggest  boasters 
will  tell  you  the  same  thing.  You  re- 
member a  big  fellow,  a  schoolmate  of 
Jean's,  who  came  here  two  or  three 
times,  and  about  whom  we  used  to  tell 
you  grotesque  yarns?  He  was  a  kind  of 
bad  actor:  morbidly  anxious  to  aston- 
ish people;  fake  duelist,  fake  traveller, 
fake  author,  fake  lover,  fake  millionaire 
— the  make-believe  hero  of  a  thousand 
tall  stories.  He  was  our  laughing-stock 
all  the  years  we  were  boys  together. 
Well,  he  has  just  been  brevetted  cap- 
tain, at  twenty-seven,  on  the  front. 
He  has  been  decorated.  I  have  seen  the 
text  of  his  citation.  It  is  bully.  I've 
seen  him  since,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  and 
he  didn't  even  mention  it/' 
[65  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

While  I  prattle  on  the  sun  is  setting 
ever  so  benignly.  Madame  Baumer, 
silken  and  tenuous,  grows  more  frail 
than  ever  in  this  even  light.  I  don't 
see  the  black  of  her  gown  so  distinctly, 
and  all  the  life  of  her  body  is  concen- 
trated in  her  slim  face  and  hands.  Her 
eyes  are  deeper,  larger. 

"I  am  thinking  about  all  that  you 
are,  whatever  the  names  we  call  you  by. 
And  I  am  thinking  of  what  we  are,  we 
others  who  are  weak,  we  for  whom  you 
are  dying  in  hosts,  with  so  sure  and  so 
light  a  heart.  Of  what  gold  and  what 
clay  do  you  suppose  the  souls  of  men 
are  moulded?  People  here  have  no  ap- 
pearance, even,  of  understanding.  They 
are  diverting  themselves,  they  haunt 
the  pleasure-resorts.  The  theatres  are 
always  crammed.  If  you  stop  to  think, 
it  is  a  public  scandal!" 

" Nonsense  I"  I  say.  "They  are  op- 
[66] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

timists.  And  aren't  good  spirits  the 
element  most  necessary  to  endurance? 
Sad  people  are  conquered  in  advance. 
If  one  has  preserved  one's  good  spirits, 
the  way  of  showing  sound  health  is  to 
keep  them  up;  if  one's  spirits  have 
sunk,  it's  good  policy  to  bring  them 
back  to  life  again." 

"But,  Maurice,  the  least  sense  of 
shame " 

"A  crowd  has  no  sense  of  shame. 
Besides,  didn't  you  say  that  people 
didn't  even  seem  to  realize  things? 
Madame,  they  don't  realize.  In  Cham- 
pagne there  are  men  who  have  spent 
a  year  there  who  haven't  seen  what 
the  country  is  like.  They  have  never 
dared  raise  their  heads  above  ground 
in  the  daytime.  Of  the  plain  in  front 
of  them  they  know  only  as  much  as 
they  can  see  through  the  narrow  mirror 
of  a  periscope.  The  French  people  see 
[67] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

the  Great  War  as  the  soldiers  see  Cham- 
pagne. 

"Will  you  listen  to  one  more  remi- 
niscence? During  the  September  hikes, 
when  we  had  been  marching  for  days 
and  days  (we'd  lost  track  of  them !),  it 
seemed  to  us  as  if  our  fatigue  had  gone 
way  beyond  the  limits  of  human  en- 
durance. Of  all  those  atrocious  hours, 
I  can  only  recall  one  night  when,  walk- 
ing in  my  track  like  a  pack-horse  and 
after  having  believed  a  thousand  times 
already  that  I  had  gone  my  limit,  I 
fixed  my  eyes  on  a  lantern  hung  on 
some  wagon  several  yards  ahead  of  me 
— as  if  that  could  drag  me  forward! 
For  quite  a  distance  I  had  no  further 
sensations.  That  lantern  filled  my  brain 
full,  and  held  all  that  was  left  to  me  of 
consciousness.  I  felt  sure  that  I  should 
fall  if  that  light  failed  me,  that  I  should 
die  there  in  the  black  night  from  physical 
[68] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

and  moral  weariness.  It  alone  bound 
me  to  life.  And  all  of 'a  sudden  it 
went  out.  I  saw  death  much  better  in 
that  moment  than  I  had  seen  it  in  the 
heaviest  bombardments.  I  felt  it.  It 
touched  me.  My  recollections,  my  love- 
affairs,  the  world,  all  my  interior  uni- 
verse, fell  down  the  bottomless  pit. 
But  just  then  I  saw  the  lantern  again. 
A  cavalryman,  passing  between  it  and 
me,  had  for  a  second  only  cut  off  its 
light.  And  I  walked  on  to  the  halting- 
place. 

" Since  then,  madame,  I  have  heard 
lots  of  stories  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne. 
I  shall  read  a  great  many  more.  But 
for  me  Joffre's  Order  of  the  Day,  the 
pursuit,  Von  Kluck's  mistake,  Foch's 
sublime  decision,  the  great  German  re- 
treat, and  the  saving  of  Paris  are  only 
history — or  legend.  Of  the  greatest  vic- 
tory in  the  world  I,  who  lived  through 
[69] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

it  all,  saw  nothing  at  all,  and  remember 
nothing,  except  the  flame  of  a  penny 
candle  fastened  by  a  wagoner  to  a 
rusty  hook  on  his  truck.  It  is  like  that 
with  lots  of  people — good  people,  too — 
they  reduce  the  biggest  sort  of  events 
to  the  size  of  a  rushlight.  We  mustn't 
lay  it  up  against  them." 

" Yes,  we  must!"  protests  Madame 
Baumer  with  rising  energy.  "The  mob 
is  really  too  base!  No  doubt  it  can't 
understand  everything.  But  what  the 
women  anyway  know  is  that  their  sons 
and  their  husbands  are  dying.  And 
meantime,  Maurice,  they  open  their 
doors  to  any  one  who  knocks.  The 
women  have  been  unspeakable.  ...  I 
ought  not  to  have  told  you  this." 

Her  voice  trembles  with  indigna- 
tion. 

"Well,  madame,  that  proves  that 
marriage  is,  in  many  cases,  only  a 
[70] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

wholly  artificial  bond.  But  the  war 
separates  only  the  couples  who  were 
brought  together  by  some  silly  chance. 
Absence  is  the  occasion,  not  the  cause. 
Perhaps  it  actually  performs  a  useful 
and  hygienic  service  in  giving  to  coun- 
terfeit wives  a  liberty  that  they  would 
have  taken  for  themselves  piecemeal. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  has  strengthened 
the  unions  which  stood  for  something 
real,  and  reveals  the  true  married  coup- 
les as  the  only  truly  pure  and  truly 
strong  ones. 

"You  know,  perhaps,  that  in  France 
it  is  a  new  fad  for  most  ordinary  people, 
the  habit  of  caring  for  their  bodies. 
You  open  your  eyes  at  that?  But  it's 
a  fact !  The  parvenus  of  cleanliness  are 
legion,  and  betray  themselves  by  the 
way  they  talk  about  their  bathrooms 
promiscuously  and  by  the  scorn  they 
take  the  trouble  of  expressing  for  people 
[71  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

who  haven't  got  them.  Now,  cleanli- 
ness is  costly  at  the  front.  It  costs  men 
who  are  all  tired  out  the  two  or  three 
mile  walk  it  takes  to  find  water.  Some- 
times it  even  costs  the  risk  of  getting 
killed  on  the  way.  And  so  you  can 
easily  tell  which  men  are  really  fas- 
tidious, and  that  sort  of  fastidiousness 
is,  out  there,  a  luxury  reserved  to  a 
small  minority.  Make  no  mistake, 
madame,  true  love  is  also  a  great  lux- 
ury. But  in  this  case  absence  and 
danger  raise  its  value.  How  many 
wives  or  husbands,  whose  tenderness 
has  been  swallowed  up  by  the  monotony 
of  their  day-by-day  existence,  or  who 
have  been  kept  from  expressing  their 
love  by  a  miserable  sort  of  bashfulness, 
have  been  suddenly  revealed  to  one  an- 
other! Have  you  ever  thought  of  the 
place  that  tenderness  has  taken  on, 
this  year,  in  letters?  Of  course,  among 
[72] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

so  many  surprises  there  are  some  un- 
lucky ones.  They  tell  a  story  in  my 
sector  about  a  husband  named  Au- 
guste  who,  in  the  mud  of  his  trench, 
received  this  line  from  his  wife:  'Dear 
Julien,  Excuse  me  for  sending  thee  only 
twenty  francs,  but  I  have  to  send  ten  francs 
to  my  husband,  who  has  been  surprised  at 
not  getting  any  remittances'  But  how 
many  sublime  letters  have  been  scrawled, 
and  how  much  unpretending  beauty 
there  has  been  in  them !  A  poor  peas- 
ant woman,  who  was  using  herself  up 
by  doing  the  hardest  kind  of  farm- 
work,  said  to  me:  'When  I  send  a  little 
money  to  my  man  I  never  ask  him  to 
write  me  the  news,  because  the  letter 
might  get  lost,  and,  as  he's  very  stingy, 
I  prefer  not  to  make  him  miserable.' 
Ah,  madame,  what  beautiful  love- 
letters  that  man  owes  to  his  wife !  Here, 
I  have  one  here,  a  letter  that  some  sol- 
[73  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

dier  lost.  Do  you  want  me  to  read  it 
to  you?" 

From  my  papers  I  draw  out  a  big 
faded  sheet.  Madame  Baumer  makes  a 
movement  of  protest. 

"  I  picked  it  up  at  the  rear.  Oh,  there 
are  lots  of  other  letters  just  like  it! 
Here  it  is: 

"  '  My  Jean,  I'm  sending  you  a  knitted 
jersey,  a  change  of  underclothes,  some 
chocolate,  and  a  pencil.  The  cold 
weather  is  here.  The  lapwings  are 
singing  in  the  new  meadow  and  in  the 
alders.  You  would  enjoy  hearing  them. 
Outin  has  written  a  letter  to  his  wife, 
and  she  showed  it  to  me  after  mass. 
He  says:  "So  long.  We  shall  be  home 
to  drink  the  new  wine."  Francois 
writes:  "I  shall  be  back  for  Christmas." 
And  Julien  du  Patras  says:  "I'll  be 
back  to  eat  some  pancakes."  You  alone, 
my  Jean,  don't  say  anything  like  that. 
[74] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

You  only  say  that  you  are  happy  and 
that  sometimes  you  sing.  Is  that  the 
truth?  I'm  praying  that  you  aren't 
lying  to  me!  Tell  me  who  are  your 
closest  friends,  by  whose  side  you  sleep, 
and  with  whom  you  eat,  whether  you 
do  little  things  for  one  another,  whether 
they,  too,  get  packages  from  home, 
what  there  is  in  your  knapsack  to  make 
it  so  heavy,  and  whether  you  are  still 
fighting.  You'll  say  that  I  am  mighty 
curious !  Everything  is  all  right  here, 
except  that  the  children  have  caught  a 
little  cold.  Mary-Josephine  is  as  tall  as 
the  table  now.  She  helps  me  wash  the 
dishes.  I  put  Louis  into  trousers  this 
week.  You  can  imagine  how  pleased 
he  is!  Now  I'm  going  to  talk  about 
myself.  The  potatoes  are  sold.  I  have 
a  good  lot  of  chickens — twenty-two 
pullets  and  a  fine  rooster;  a  regular 
treasure.  As  to  our  work,  we've  nearly 
[75  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME 


finished  sowing,  your  mother  and  I. 
They  took  all  our  mares,  ours  and  Uncle 
Peter's.  But  we'll  manage  all  the  same. 
I  bring  the  cow  in  to  the  barn  every 
evening  and  put  her  out  in  the  meadow 
every  morning.  I  should  be  glad  to  do 
some  harrowing;  the  crop  is  a  good  one, 
but  there  is  a  lot  of  stubble  in  the  buck- 
wheat— in  the  Taillee  field.  I  shall 
commence  with  that.  I  am  trying  to 
do  everything  I  can,  just  as  you  used 
to. 

I  stop  reading.  Madame  Baumer  is 
in  a  brown  study;  pensive,  she  softly 
repeats  that  little  sentence  where  a 
wife's  humble  tenderness  is  summed  up 
so  simply:  "I  am  trying  to  do  every- 
thing I  can,  just  as  you  used  to." 

"Yes,"   I   go  on,   "one   notices  the 

people  who  are  having  a  good  time,  and 

the  other  ones  don't  show  up.    Perhaps 

we  ought  to  have  looked  for  the  hidden 

[  76] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


beauty  of  this  war,  that  we've  hunted 
for  in  vain  in  the  mud  and  the  chem- 
istry of  battle-fields,  down  at  the  bottom 
of  the  postman's  bag.  Oh,  if  we  could 
only  know  the  whole  story !  How  many 
hearts  that  we  thought  were  cold  have 
burst  the  envelope  that  was  stifling  all 
their  fire!" 

"Maurice,"  says  Madame  Baumer, 
once  more  serene,  "take  care — you're 
going  to  become  confidential!" 

And  she  raises  her  eyebrows,  amused 
and  a  bit  worried. 

"Why  not?"  I  ask.  "Listen:  The 
3d  of  August,  the  day  I  left  for 
the  front,  I  hadn't  yet  bought  myself 
the  indispensable  woollen  socks  and 
campaign  medicine-kit — tincture  of  io- 
dine, paregoric,  and  permanganate  of 
potassium — that  are  recommended  to 
soldiers.  I  went  out  with  my  father, 
who  wanted  to  see  something  of  the 
[77] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

streets  and  to  get  in  touch  with  the 
newspapers.  You  remember  the  gossip 
that  day  about  the  departure  of  Baron 
von  Schoen  and  England's  attitude.  I 
did  most  of  the  talking.  You  know 
father;  always  reserved,  with  his  head 
full  of  things  he  keeps  to  himself.  I 
was  quite  excited.  He,  calmer  than 
usual  even.  We  were  going  up  the 
Boulevard  Saint-Germain — I  beating 
the  sidewalk  with  my  cane.  At  the 
corner  of  the  rue  du  Bac  father  halted 
and  said  good-by.  'Now,  my  boy,  I'm 
going  to  say  good-by  to  you.'  We  were 
uncomfortable  on  that  sidewalk.  All 
the  passers-by  bumped  into  us.  Father, 
bothered  by  the  crowd,  was  very  clumsy 
about  it.  He  stretched  out  his  hand — 
a  new  thing  for  him  to  do  to  me.  All  the 
same,  I  offered  him  my  forehead,  that  a 
warm  breath  and  a  beard  skimmed  rather 
awkwardly.  I  took  his  slender  hand,  a 
[78] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

hand  unknown  to  mine,  and — how  can 
I  explain  it? — I  who  had  always  been 
a  little  afraid  of  him,  felt,  this  time,  that 
it  was  he  who  was  timid.  His  hand  was 
so  frail.  It  hesitated  a  little,  and — well, 
it  annoyed  me  to  have  noticed  that.  I 
made  haste  to  clasp  it,  and  then,  at  once, 
it  returned  the  clasp.  Oh,  madame,  I 
am  a  brute  1  Never,  never  had  I  real- 
ized that  father  loved  me  like  that!" 

Madame  Baumer  took  my  hands. 

"My  little  Maurice!  You  are  cry- 
ing !" 

I  cough  to  pull  myself  together  and 
look  hard  at  the  walls  and  ceiling  to 
substitute  that  picture  for  the  picture 
I  see  again  so  clearly:  the  Paris  street 
corner  where,  in  the  thick  of  a  moving 
crowd,  I  learned  that  my  father  loved 
me;  and  then  his  slender  black  figure, 
his  back  that  was  going  away  .  .  . 
going  away.  .  .  . 

[79] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

It  is  for  me  to  break  a  silence  of  which 
I  am  the  rather  silly  cause. 

"Dear  madame,  it  is  very  late.  It 
is  pretty,  the  curtain  of  blue  sky  that 
is  slowly  darkening  outside  your  win- 
dows. ...  I  must  be  leaving  you. 
No,  no!  I  don't  want  you  to  kiss 
me.  I  want  to  go  just  as  I  used  to  go, 
notwithstanding  I  have  such  a  fine 
helmet.  I  kiss  your  hands..  Good-by. 
Your  tea  was  excellent.  You  want  to 
kiss  me  all  the  same?  Very  well,  I'll 
deliver  this  kiss  to  Jean.  What  a 
wretched  soldier  I  am!  A  real  soldier 
would  have  made  you  laugh,  and  now 
your  eyes  are  wet!" 

"No!  You  have  cheered  me  up. 
You  were  nice.  I  shall  have  more  cour- 
age now." 

I  feel  jolly  and,  of  a  sudden,  very 
proud  of  myself.  I  go  on,  weakening 
a  little: 

[80] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

"My  comrades  would  have  done 
better  than  I.  I  wish  you  could  hear 
the  laughter  with  which  they  fill  their 
shelters,  their  huts,  and  the  village 
inns.  Only  yesterday,  in  a  station 
lunch-room,  while  a  lot  of  them  were 
roaring  together  near  me,  I  drew  closer. 
It  was  a  convalescent  soldier  who  was 
describing  his  little  end  of  some  battle 
to  a  group  of  men  on  leave.  What  a 
story !  I  'd  love  to  repeat  it  to  you.  But 
it  would  take  another  voice  than  mine, 
and  that  slanginess  which  lends  old 
words  a  flavor,  that  accent  which  colors 
them,  and  that  rude  leitmotiv  which 
gives  them  rhythm  and  quickens  one's 
interest.  This  good  chap  was  a  cyclist 
who,  last  September,  being  the  despatch- 
rider  of  his  regiment,  accidentally  fell  in 
with  a  Boche  company. 

"  'When  I  saw  'em,'  he  said,  'I  was 
flabbergasted.  I  guess  you  know  whether 
[81  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

I  changed  my  direction  and  put  on  some 
steam !  Fiji  .  .  .  /  piji  .  .  .  !  The  bees 
were  buzzing  as  fast  as  me!  I  beat  it 
'crosscountry;  piji  .  .  .  /  The  suckers! 
There  were  a  hundred  and  fifty  of  'em 
at  least  firing  at  me.  I  looked  at  the 
ground  under  my  feet.  I  says  to  myself: 
"This  is  the  time  they  get  you!  I  see 
my  finish!"  Talk  about  rabbit-holes! 
I  didn't  have  more'n  twenty  yards  to 
do  to  strike  a  lane  that  was  kind  of 
sunk  down  below  the  fields.  But  twenty 
yards  can  seem  a  long  ways  at  times! 
I'm  getting  there  all  right,  when  bang!  I 
catch  one  in  the  left  hip.  You'd  have 
taken  it  for  a  hit  with  a  club.  I  keep 
on  pedalling.  Oh,  the  suckers!  A 
worse  one  than  the  other — smack  in 
the  right  hip  where  it  cuts  my  sciatic. 
That  time,  hang  it  all!  it  bowls  me 
over.  I  try  to  get  up  again — nothing 
doing!  My  foot  just  goes  like  this  and 
[82] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

that.  It  wouldn't  have  anything  to  do 
with  the  job,  that  foot  of  mine!  The 
suckers !  I  undo  my  knapsack  and  take 
my  box  of  monkey-meat — you  know, 
the  reserve  stores  you're  forbidden  to 
touch — and  then  I  have  some  meal. 
I've  a  noggin  of  rum  I'd  bought  at 
Noisy-l'-Sec.  I  takes  a  swig.  I  says  to 
myself:  "Hot  stuff!"  That  brings  a 
big  gawk  of  a  Boche  officer  who  seems 
to  be  snooping  round  everywhere.  I 
shout:  "Lookin'  for  the  corpse?  '11  right, 
stop  lookin';  I'm  the  corpse."  Fellows, 
he  comes  at  me  makin'  fancy  steps  and 
tucks  his  gun  under  my  nose.  I  says 
to  him:  "That's  the  stuff!  that's  the 
stuff!"  "You're  wounded ?"sezee.  "A 
mite,  my  lad!"  Then  he  calls  another 
Boche,  who  begins  to  cut  my  pants 
away.  Boys,  maybe  there  wasn't  some 
blood  inside!  The  Boche  got  both 
hands  full,  all  right!  'n  he  asks  me, 
[83] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

like  that,  by  signs,  for  my  bandage.  I 
hand  it  over.  He  ties  up  one  hip. 
Says  I:  "That's  some  better!"  He 
asks  me  for  another  roll  o'  bandage.  I 
only  had  one !  He's  not  surprised,  the 
chap;  he  takes  his  own!  He  does  up 
my  other  hip.  I  says  to  myself:  "Hot 
stuff!"  Then  he  leans  over,  I  catch 
him  by  the  neck,  and  off  we  go.  From 
time  to  time  he  stops  because,  it  seems,  I 
strangle  him.  You  see,  I  had  him  by  the 
neck,  me,  like  a  brother!  At  last  he 
dumps  me  in  a  house  where  they're 
three,  four  wounded  Boches  who  call 
me  "Kamerad!  Kamerad!"  and  show 
me  photos  of  their  kids,  and  ask  me 
how  many  I've  got.  I  show  'em  four 
fingers.  I  might  as  well  have  made  it 
a  dozen.  You're  on — I  want  some 
sympathy.  "Awful!  Awful!"  they  say. 
Then  they  give  me  cigarettes,  sausages, 
and  cochineal.  They  had  big  boxes  of 
[84] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

canned  stuff:  boxes  as  big  as  lobster- 
pots.  I  was  there,  just  going  to  have 
a  snack,  when  I  see  a  French  cuirassier 
go  gallopin'  past  the  window.  I  says 
to  myself:  "Things  look  to  be  bright- 
enin'  up!"  And  then  comes  another, 
a  whale  of  a  chap,  with  a  sabre,  who 
comes  in  and  says  to  me:  "What  the 
deuce  you  doing  here?"  I  says:  "You 
see,  I'm  a  prisoner."  Sezee:  "No  more 
you  ain't.  And  these  chaps?"  "Them, 
my  boy,"  I  explain,  "are  wounded 
Boches."  "Bodies!  "he  rips  out.  "The 
suckers !  I  can't  take  'em  prisoner,  those 
bums!"  He  makes  like  he'd  cut  their 
throats!  The  Boches  yell:  "  Nicht  ka- 
put! Don't  kill  us!"  He,  with  his 
big  stupid  of  a  sabre,  was  going  to 
make  'em  go  down  into  their  cabbages 
again.  ...  I  says:  "Old  dear,  these 
are  brothers  of  mine.  What's  more, 
I  dare  you  to  touch  'em.  If  you  feel 
[85  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


like  killing,  go  kill  somewhere  else.  Be- 
sides, these  are  my  prisoners."  "Good 
Lord,"  he  keeps  sayin'  over  and  over, 
"  what  am  I  to  do  with  'em?  What 
am  I  to  do  with  'em?"  My,  when 
he'd  gone,  if  you'd  seen  my  four  Boches ! 
They  were  crazy;  they  plain  bawled 
for  joy!  One  of  'em  was  shot  in  the 
foot,  and  he  danced  a  jig  on  one  leg! 
And  right  away  they  threw  all  their 
equipment  out  the  window.  "Nicht 
war!"  they  yelled.  "Nicht  Parisse!" 
And  hop!  went  their  guns — hop!  went 
their  clodhopper  shoes;  hop!  hop!  hop! 
" Deutschland  uber  alles!"  .  .  .  We  all 
got  together  again  at  the  hospital  later 
on.' 

"I  have  told  the  story  very  badly, 
for  you  haven't  laughed.  Those  who 
listened  to  the  way  the  wounded  man 
told  it  laughed  fit  to  kill.  And  this  yarn 
of  the  chasseurs  whose  unlucky  game 
[86] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

he  was — crowded,  beaten,  peppered — 
seemed  to  him  the  most  ridiculous  farce 
ever.  At  a  near-by  table  a  great  red- 
faced  commissariat  officer,  fat  enough 
to  burst,  listened  and  rolled  his  big  eyes. 
The  other  fellow  snapped  out  at  him: 
'  What  ails  you,  old  man?  You've  gone 
pale !  If  you  keep  on  like  that,  my  boy, 
you'll  have  to  see  a  doctor  I'  Then, 
when  he'd  paid  for  his  bottle  of  wine, 
'Come,  old  chap,  look  sharp  that  you 
don't  cut  yourself  with  your  fountain 
pen!'  and  went  limping  off.  ...  That 
doesn't  sound  much  like  tragedy  and 
tremolo,  does  it,  now?" 

This  time  Madame  Baumer  smiles. 

"Maurice,  since  seeing  you  again  I'm 
almost  reconciled  to  the  war." 

The  blue  is  a  deeper  shade  than  ever 

on  the  other  side  of  the  windows.    But 

I  shall  never  cure  myself  of  the  bad 

habit  of  going  right  on  talking  after  I 

[87] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

have  said  my  good-by,  and  making  two 
or  three  partings  of  it. 

"Madame,"  I  say,  with  my  hand  on 
the  door,  "they  used  to  tell  me  that  the 
morals  of  a  country  suffer  when,  for 
several  years  running,  the  winters 
aren't  cold.  It  seems  that  then  there 
are  hard  times  and  the  Chambers  lack  a 
quorum.  And  I  had  an  old  aunt  who 
would  say,  laying  down  her  newspaper: 
*  There  is  no  such  thing  as  reverence 
any  more.  We  need  a  good  war.' ' 

"Alas!  Maurice.  ..." 

"Come,  come,  madame!" 

"Good-by,"  she  repeats  once  more. 
"I  hope  that " 

She  does  not  finish.  And  as  I  see 
that  she  has  flushed: 

"I  hope  so,  too,"  I  say,  laughing. 

And  now  on  the  staircase,  where  I 
skip  half  the  steps,   making  as   little 
[88] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

noise  as  possible  with  my  thick  hob- 
nailed boots,  I  hum  a  waltz.  The 
street  again — and  just  the  hour  I  love ! 

I  walk  straight  ahead,  young,  happy, 
and  it  is  all  I  can  do  to  keep  from  run- 
ning. The  daylight,  evenly  distributed, 
is  as  if  filtered  through  parchment. 
The  shop-windows  glitter  in  it.  The 
mirrors  show  gracious  reflections.  The 
eyes  of  passers-by  have  something  of 
its  limpid  luminosity.  The  women  are 
extraordinary. 

And  yet,  after  a  few  steps,  I  feel  a 
sensation  of  flatness,  a  weariness  of 
myself,  that  sense  of  emptiness  which 
comes  to  one  on  days  when  one  has 
done  too  much  talking.  The  idea  of 
seeing  still  more  faces  which  will  re- 
flect my  own  becomes  all  at  once  quite 
insupportable.  I  ought  to  have  ac- 
cepted Fabienne's  dinner  invitation. 
Heavens,  but  I  am  lonely.  After  all, 
[89] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

though,  what  was  the  telephone  invented 
for? 

In  the  booth  where  I  impatiently 
turn  the  pages  of  the  telephone-book  I 
have  the  frightful  presentiment  that 
Fabienne  will  not  be  in.  I  wonder  why 
I'm  looking  for  her  number?  I  still 
remember  it.  I  will  verify,  but,  yes,  I 
was  right. 

Madame  is  in.  I  am  so  blissful  that 
I  tremble.  .  .  .  Her  voice  is  surprised 
at  first,  then  delighted.  "But  I  am  de- 
lighted!" she  tells  me  in  a  tone  calmer 
than  my  pride  could  have  desired.  No 
matter!  She  is  expecting  me.  We  will 
dine  alone  at  her  apartment. 

I  call  a  taxi,  which,  after  a  little  de- 
tour (for  I  want  some  cigarettes),  will 
glide  to  the  rue  Tronchet.  The  light  of 
day  is  taking  itself  away  with  coquetry, 
singing  as  it  goes  a  funeral  march  in 
blue.  Its  luminance  still  rests  on  all 
[90  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


bright  objects,  which  it  picks  out  for 
a  light  caress.  Everything  has  become 
precious.  The  street  is  as  if  under  glass. 

I  find  an  exquisite  Fabienne:  happy, 
alert,  and  with  her  hair  rearranged. 

"Take  off  that  awful  helmet,"  she 
says.  "You  look  like  a  fireman.  You 
know,  Mr.  Change- Your-Mind,  that  the 
dinner  is  brought  in  from  outside.  So 
we'll  have  to  take  it  as  it  comes.  .  .  . 
Stay  right  here  and  be  good.  I'll  be 
back  in  ten  minutes." 

I  implore  her: 

"No,  no!  No  surprises!  Let  me 
believe  that  it  is  all  very  simple — a  sol- 
dier who  invites  himself  to  a  pot-luck 
dinner.  Fabienne!  Fabienne!  Don't 
go!" 

But  she  has  already  gone.   They  bring 

me  some  newspapers.     In  them  I  find 

opinions  and  speeches,  but  few  facts. 

It  seems  we  have  advanced  in  Cham- 

[91  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .   . 

pagne!  Well,  I  shall  see  about  that 
for  myself,  to-morrow. — Only  the  car- 
icaturists seem  tolerable  to  me.  They 
at  least  know  how  to  deal  with  real- 
ities. The  rest  of  the  paper  doesn't 
even  focus  my  attention.  At  the  front 
sometimes  I  used  to  bear  to  my  colonel, 
in  the  little  grove  where  he  was  living, 
the  three-o'clock  communique.  The  col- 
onel would  rise  and,  in  a  changed  voice, 
say  to  the  officers  who  made  up  his  four 
at  bridge:  "The  communique,  gentle- 
men!" He  read  with  mock  gravity  in 
a  tone  by  which  he  tried  to  lend  to 
the  official  news  an  importance  that  his 
intelligence  had  long  since  failed  to 
find  in  it.  The  others,  during  this 
reading,  stopped  playing  cards,  but  not 
thinking  about  their  play.  I  could 
easily  enough  see  how  their  minds  were 
wandering.  Since  then  I've  come  across 
this  same  mental  attitude  of  the  front 
[  92  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

which  instinctively  feels  that  this  enor- 
mous affair  is  not  its  affair.  Our  officers 
think  as  we  do  about  this.  Nothing 
concerns  them  but  the  orders  for  their 
sector.  It  is  not  we"  to  see  the  struggle 
from  too  elevated  a  point  of  view. 
One  becomes  too  tiny  a  .combatant. 
One  no  longer  believes  in  his  own  role. 

Fabienne  returns,  her  arms  full  of 
flowers,  of  clusters  of  a  fine  madder-red 
that  I  used  to  know  by  name.  With  a 
deft  hand  she  spreads  them  over  the 
dming-room  table.  After  which  we 
sink  into  the  cushions  of  .two  settles  on 
each  side,  of  the  chimney,  fire  which  re- 
places, th,is,  even  ing,  the  Boche  heater. 

Fabienne  would  like  to  know  what  I 
think  of  the,  Russian  retreat,  and  whether 
the  Rumanians  really  do  love  France. 
I  bring  her  round,  without  much  diffi- 
culty, to  more  feminine  subjects.  Some 
easy  transitions,  and  now  (we  are  off  on 
f  93  1 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

stories  of  her  girl  friends.  I  listen  to 
these  thin  little  comedies  and  watch  the 
play  of  them  over  her  subtle  features, 
to  which  the  wisely  arranged  lights  lend 
just  the  right  effect,  and  which  warmth 
and  animation  are  commencing  to  un- 
powder.  A  pretty  thing  is  a  pretty 
woman !  Her  gestures  follow  her  stories, 
quite  as,  to  the  peals  of  her  laughter, 
responds  the  sparkling  of  the  big  dia- 
mond on  her  little  white  hand. 

"Fabienne,"  I  say,  "play  some- 
thing!" 

"Oh!"  she  exclaims,  aghast.  "But, 
my  friend,  we  are  at  war!  My  neigh- 
bors would  be  shocked  to  pieces!" 

"So  much  the  worse  for  them,  Fa- 
bienne. I'm  hungry  for  some  music. 
And  play  something  really  lively.  Ah ! 
If  you  can,  the  last  movement  of  the 
Ninth  Symphony.  But,  perhaps,  you 
don't  know  it?" 

[94] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

"But  Beethoven  is  German!" 
"That  is  so.     They'd  have  you  put 
out,  I  suppose.    Well,  it  doesn't  matter. 
Play  anything  you  like." 

She  rises,  obedient,  and  goes  to  the 
piano.  Her  supple  body,  while  she  is 
walking,  flows  in  the  long  pure  lines 
which  repeat  themselves  as  from  an 
inexhaustible  source.  She  plays  the 
famous  air  of  Moussorgski  which  Lit- 
vine  sang  so  well.  An  issue  of  /'//- 
lustration  lies  open  wide  on  the  music- 
stand.  Sometimes  these  views  are  sub- 
lime syntheses,  and  this  one  gives  me 
a  positive  thrill.  It  is  a  line  of  men, 
all  of  them  waiting  on  their  knees 
for  the  moment  to  spring  forward  at 
the  signal  for  the  charge.  Fabienne 
does  not  see  them,  these  men.  She  will 
never  see  them.  She  is  singing.  She 
sings  without  art,  but  in  a  clear  and 
correct  voice  whose  middle  register  is 
[95  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

really  beautiful.  My  eyes  are  fixed  on 
her  shadowed  neck,  which  commences 
her  nudeness.  Ah,  how  can  we  be  so 
silly  as  to  reproach  woman  with  her 
dormant  animality?  Have  we  not  made 
her  like  that?  And  need  we  drag  her 
into  these  pretentious  stories  of  men, 
these  heavy  and  tragic  affairs  in  which 
it  was  our  part  to  have  foreseen  and  to 
have  known  how  to  escape?  No!  Let 
her  preserve  for  our  return  her  calm  and 
her  serene  beauty.  Here  are  a  piano 
and  flowers.  .  .  .  The  table  beside  us 
is  set.  Daylight  has  not  abandoned 
Earth.  Sing,  sing,  my  creature ! 

But  as  she  reaches  the  last  measures, 
and  as  her  head  turns,  while  her  fingers, 
on  the  keys,  let  fall  the  last  harmonies, 
I  draw  near  and  say: 

"Fabienne!" 

She  faces  round,  divines,  rises,  hesi- 
tates. I  seize  her:  she  takes  fright, 
[96] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


implores,  grieves,  weakens,  and  al- 
ready, as  I  bear  her  off,  I  feel  her 
poor  thralled  flesh  which  adores  me  and 
dedicates  itself.  .  .  . 

And  now  we  are  peacefully  dining, 
and  prattling  on  good-naturedly.  The 
confidences  of  the  flesh  do  so  simplify 
relations!  Everything  we  say  amuses 
me,  and  my  fork  seems  very  light  in 
my  hand.  We  are  joking  spontane- 
ously— I  already  detached,  like  one  upon 
the  point  of  parting;  she  marvellously 
adaptable,  like  those  who  live  only  in 
the  present. 

Also  the  clock  is  racing  on.  Already 
anxious  about  the  time,  I  absently  pluck 
grapes  from  the  bunch.  I  see  a  black  vi- 
sion of  railroad-trains  instead  of  the  luxu- 
rious course  before  me.  I  await  the  end 
of  the  long  story  that  Fabienne  is  tell- 
ing me  in  a  caressing  voice.  Ah,  now! 
[971 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

"Good-by,  Fabio!" 

"Oh,  so  soon  I"  she  cries,  really 
wounded. 

Her  eyes  are  big  and  moist.  She 
sighs  as  she  offers  me  her  narrow  little 
head  that  I  take  in  my  open  hands  and 
bring  to  my  lips  as  a  fruit. 

"  Let's  hope  that  this  hideous  war " 

" will  soon  be  over.  Yes,  Fa- 

bienne." 

"You'll  write  to  me?" 

"Naturally." 

Her  brows  gather  for  an  instant. 

"It's  lasted  thirteen  months,"  says 
she.  "All  the  same,  when  one  stops  to 
think,  the  time  has  passed  pretty  fast." 

"Ah,  my  dear,  that,"  I  say  with 
fervor,  "that  is  the  jolliest  thing  any 
one  has  said  about  it  yet!" 

Entering  the  motor  which  waits  for 
me  below,  I  see  her.    She  waves  to  me 
[  98  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

from  her  bright  window.  It  is  true,  all 
the  same,  that  women  have  lost  some 
of  their  importance ! 

I  smile,  however,  in  my  corner  to 
think  of  the  young  male  I  have  just 
been,  taking  without  any  fuss,  as  in 
passing,  this  simple  and  merited  plea- 
sure. Alfred  would  approve  of  me. 

The  air  enters  by  the  open  window 
and  its  freshness  on  my  eyes  already 
dims  the  pictures  of  a  fleeting  eve- 
ning. During  this  brief  motor  trip,  at 
least,  I  should  like  to  devote  a  friendly 
thought  to  the  pleasures  I  am  leaving 
behind.  But  the  stern  present  con- 
flicts with  such  a  desire. 

At  this  hour  Paris  is  dark  as  a  village. 
I  don't  know  very  well  the  names  of 
these  quarters.  The  shaded  street- 
lamps  throw  strange  crepe-like  shadows 
on  the  houses  as  we  pass  them.  ...  Is 
this  la  Villette,  or  Pantin?  I  do  not 
[99  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

know — but  it  is  gloomy  here  I  Always, 
when  one  is  a  passer-by,  something  in 
one  takes  the  impress  of  the  place  trav- 
ersed. In  certain  avenues  of  Paris  I 
become  a  lordling.  Everything  seems 
happy  to  me,  and  easy.  In  these  sub- 
urbs one  feels  himself  humble,  and  the 
weight  of  life  crushes  one  down;  one's 
heart  is  as  heavy  as  a  crowbar.  These 
suburbs  of  the  workers  are  big,  too !  It 
is  near  here  that  Alfred's  home  should 
be,  where  his  wife  and  daughter  are 
waiting  for  him.  It  is  from  one  of  these 
steep  houses  that  he  left,  the  same  day 
as  I,  with  a  cheese  in  one  pocket,  a 
sausage  in  the  other,  a  flask  of  rum 
slung  to  his  shoulder-belt,  and  at  the 
bottom  of  his  wallet,  between  his 
union-card  and  his  voting-card,  a  pho- 
tograph of  his  wife  in  her  Sunday  best. 
Alfred,  among  the  comrades  that  chance 
has  given  me  out  there,  there  are  some 
[  100  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

from  whom  I  am  so  far  that  daily  con- 
tact with  them  makes  my  task  still 
heavier;   there    are  •  othefsy*, }ike    yc&fc' 
without  whom  I  should,  perhaps,  ,h£yp, 
chucked   it.     To'*y<fa','-Alfiedr*i*'.Gfa: 
much,    and    my    heart   feels    you    to 
be   very   near!     Till    to-morrow,    old 
friend ! 

The  city  gate,  a  long  boulevard,  a 
region  I  do  not  know.  It  has  been  rain- 
ing. It  is  raining  still,  even.  My 
vehicle  stops  at  Bourget,  at  the  little 
cafe  where  the  convoys  are  dining.  I 
find  Bossard,  who  has  been  waiting 
for  me.  He  shows  me  the  way.  From 
the  station  of  Bourget- Echange,  where 
we  are,  we  must  go  to  recover  at  Bour- 
get-Triage  the  wagon  Px50712,  which  is 
ours.  We  walk  into  the  rails,  run 
against  signal-wires,  slide  on  the  screen- 
ing that  the  rain  has  made  so  slippery. 
Bossard  curses.  I  follow  him,  docile. 
[  101  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


And  it  rains  on  the  horses,  on  the  soaked 
wagon-tops. 

Px50712  *  "is  part  of  a  train,  the 
last  wagon  of  which  we  enter.  Tired 
or  Bo-ssard,  -tired- of  Bourget,  I  wrap 
myself  in  my  rug  and  stretch  out  on  the 
greasy  floor.  I  make  haste  to  put 
myself  out  of  range  of  these  lamps,  these 
engines,  this  complex  network  of  track- 
age, my  head  heavy  with  impressions. 
But  even  in  this  corner  of  black  night 
I  cannot  pull  myself  together.  I  am  all 
expectation  and  fatigue. 

Long  hours  pass.  At  Chalons  I  must 
descend  and  join  Bossard  in  a  train 
full  of  men  on  leave.  I  seat  myself 
next  to  some  murmuring  soldiers.  A 
laugh  in  a  neighboring  compartment 
finds  no  echo.  But  a  dispute  that  has 
just  started  up  runs  on,  begins  all  over, 
and  will  never  finish. 

The  men  are  talking  all  at  the  same 
[  102] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

time.  I  watch  them.  What  vigor! 
These  peasants,  these  workmen,  are  real 
soldiers  now.  But  in  listening  to  them 
I  divine  little  by  little  the  cause  of  their 
heavy  dejection,  unlocked  for  in  men  I 
know  so  well,  and  not  to  be  explained 
merely  by  fear  of  the  life  they  are  re- 
turning to  and  regret  for  what  they 
are  leaving  behind.  No,  these  men  left 
the  front  with  the  delicious  idea  that 
they  were  going  to  cry  out  their  dis- 
tress, get  rid  of  their  stored-up  com- 
plaints, and  tell  all  about  the  mud,  the 
blood,  the  horror,  the  torture.  .  .  . 
But  they  have  been  petted  and  feted. 
Paris  has  shown  them  its  enthusiasm, 
has  applauded  their  prowess,  has  re- 
counted their  legend  to  them.  Flat- 
tered, they  have,  little  by  little,  told 
the  story  that  was  expected  of  them. 
The  heroic  role  prepared  for  them  in 
advance  by  other  people's  imagina- 
[  103  ] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

tions,  they  have  played  it  without  really 
taking  it  in.  And  now,  in  this  gloomy 
train  that  is  bringing  them  back  to  their 
misery,  they  realize  that  they  have  told 
nothing  of  the  things  they  had  to  tell. 

Again  a  change  of  cars,  and  we  must 
pack  ourselves  in,  the  best  we  can,  in  a 
long,  unlighted  train,  whose  locomotive 
even  has  all  its  fires  screened;  then  on 
again,  slowly,  till  we  get  off  at  last 
in  a  pitch-dark  station.  There  I  lie 
down  till  dawn  in  a  shadowy  waiting- 
room,  where  stretched-out  men  are 
sleeping.  Others  are  talking  in  a  low 
voice.  The  cannon,  very  distant,  sound 
faintly  in  the  ear,  but  vibrate  all 
through  one's  body,  as  when  some  one 
who  is  not  very  heavy  shakes  the  floor 
overhead. 

'The  pigs!"  growls  a  soldier. 

And  at  last,  after  tedious  hours,  the 
regimental  train  carries  me  as  far  as 
[  104  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

the  bombarded  village  near  which  the 
trenches  commence.  Blue  sky  shines 
through  holes  in  ruined  walls.  Thou- 
sands of  birds  are  fluttering  about,  and 
near  the  canal  a  man,  completely  naked, 
is  picking  off  lice.  An  adjutant  is'fish- 
ing  with  a  line. 

Now  I  am  walking  over  the  plain 
whose  first  undulations  even  have  been 
ploughed  with  shells.  The  soil  is  sown 
with  old  iron.  Calmly  I  walk  in  the 
silence,  but  a  brand-new  shell-hole, 
that  I  find  in  my  path,  gives  me  an  un- 
expected uneasiness,  and  makes  me 
quicken  my  pace.  And  suddenly  a  shell 
bursting  on  my  left  makes  me  hit  it  up 
even  faster.  Here  are  the  former  first 
lines.  I  progress  with  difficulty,  tired 
out.  Strands  of  detached  wire  stick 
up  in  the  air  like  stumps  that  stir  in 
the  breeze — the  agonized  pulsing  of  a 
nightmare  vegetation!  A  pine  wood 
[  105  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

opposite  shows  no  more  than  skeletons 
of  trees. 

And  here  are  the  first  corpses. 

The  Germans  are  ugly,  earthy.  The 
soiled  green  of  their  uniforms  accentu- 
ates their  lividity.  A  panic  still  to  be 
read  in  their  attitudes  and  their  fea- 
tures has  grouped  them  here,  in  piles, 
like  clusters  of  the  damned.  Dead 
horses,  swollen  like  full  ulcers,  stretch 
their  rigid  legs  skyward,  like  monstrous 
wooden  playthings.  And  then  the  little 
men  in  blue,  hugging  the  soil  with 
knotted  hands  that  bespeak  the  despair 
of  dying  here  before  they  reach  the  goal: 
poses  of  children  who  have  flung  them- 
selves on  their  faces  to  sob  their  hearts 
out.  The  white  spots  all  about  are 
their  letters,  the  dear  trifles  that  never 
left  them,  and  that  have  been  scattered 
now  by  those  who  have  gone  through 
their  pockets.  For  there  is  always 
[  106] 


THE  WAR,  MADAME  .  .  . 

some  one  to  take  from  the  corpses  their 
last  few  sous.  They  are  so  far  away, 
and  so  poor!  And,  as  looters  are 
shot  on  sight,  they  are  quick  at  their 
work  and  shamelessly  discard  papers, 
photographs,  postal-cards,  just  where 
they  happen  to  find  them.  So  it  was 
that,  near  a  fallen  body,  in  the  thick  of 
scattered  papers,  I  picked  up  one  day 
the  letter  which  moved  Madame  Bau- 
mer. 

At  present,  before  these  ugly  sights, 
I  recover  my  unfeeling  heart,  my  dead- 
ened heart  of  the  habitue.  But,  as  I 
cross  one  by  one  all  the  circles  of  this 
hell  which  will  all  winter  surround  me,  I 
conjure  up  again  my  trip  in  the  op- 
posite direction  that  I  made  one  morn- 
ing toward  silence  and  cities.  While, 
between  gullies,  over  a  ruptured  and 
terrible  soil,  I  see  once  more  the  inverse 
stages,  the  gendarmes,  the  ambulance- 
[  107  ] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME  .  .  . 

cars  (first  humble  reawakening  of  human 
pity),  the  fires  of  the  kitchen-wagons — 
then,  farther  on,  the  first  motors,  the 
first  railway-station,  the  first  faces  of 
women.  .  .  .  But  I  must  make  faster 
progress.  Come,  be  quick!  Let's 
run! 

Panting,  I  throw  myself  flat  to  earth, 
and  make  myself  small  on  the  rough 
ground.  A  rumbling  clatter,  whose 
pitch  rises  as  it  passes  overhead,  shatters 
my  nerves,  stops  my  very  breath.  .  .  . 

It's  over.  My  throat  relaxes.  I  gulp 
a  great  swallow  of  air,  and  set  out  again 
at  a  good  clip. 

Let  us  hope  that  this  frightful  war 
will  soon  be  finished. 

Ah!    Paris! 

Extract  from  the  "Official  Journal  of 
the  French  Republic"  (Orders  of  the 
Day): 

[  108] 


THE  WAR,   MADAME 


Vernier,    Maurice,    Corporal    of   the 
— th  Regiment  of  Infantry.     Already 


cited.  Gravely  wounded  November  3, 
J91S,  -at  the  moment  when,  armed  with 
bombs,  he  was  leading  his  men  to  an 
attack  on  an  enemy  trench.  Has  suc- 
cumbed to  his  wounds. 


[  109  ] 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIB 


